Chapter One Hundred and Eight - It Turns Out that Dinosaurs are Dangerous I froze for a moment. Three targets, all rushing in fast. Fran fired, then fired again and again, and at that moment, the only thing I could think was 'wow, she doesn't know how to handle a gun.' Then I mentally kicked myself in the ass, shouldered my gun, and fired. Three more shots, all going into the face of the monster to my left, the one that had jumped out of the pond. It went down, but then I had to switch the tubes over on my gun. Not something too hard to do, but it required an additional movement, and-- The monster coming down from above was right up in my face. I cursed, swung my gun at it like a brick, and bashed it in the face. Then its long tongue shot out like a dart and I coughed as it punched me in the gut. The damned thing had long, narrow barbs that sank right into me, sending a lance of warm pain up my torso. I Shadow Bolted the fuck in the eye as recompense, and it twitched back. I was just regaining my footing when it charged forwards and rammed in me in the side, throwing me to the ground. Landing in a roll, I spun around, reaching for my revolver. The shotgun wasn't far. The sling had kept it close, but it was all turned around already and I didn't exactly want to spend a minute untangling it. Then I screamed as the velociraptor stepped on my leg, long talons digging onto my calf. It reached down, mouth opening wide, tongue shivering inside its gullet, teeth barred. I fired three Shadow Bolts in quick succession into his face. They were just hard enough to make its head tilt to the side and to cause it to flinch. That gave me the time to pull out my gun and fire six rounds into its chest. The monster crumpled, and I winced as the falling body dug its talons in deeper, but my attention was snapping over to Fran. She was bit. The velociraptor had her by the forearm and was shaking her like a dog with a toy, only Fran was able, barely, to keep her feet under her. Her sword was swinging up and down, sizzling as it dug inch-deep furrows into the monster's sides. I kicked off the dead beast from off of me, then scrambled for my gun. Turning, I twisted the second tube into place, pumped a shell in, then fired. The buckshot ripped the underbelly of the velociraptor apart like a waterballoon bursting. It let go of Fran, and in that moment, after she regained her footing, she rushed in and delivered a heavy over-head swipe. The glowing blade chopped a foot into the monster's side, right at the shoulder joint and into its barrel. It gurgled and fell, glowing blade melting through flesh on the way out. "Are you, urgh. You okay?" I asked. Fran winced, dismissing her spell to get a free hand. She pulled her poncho aside and inspected her arm. There was some blood there. A lot of it, actually. I rolled onto my feet, then gasped as it pulled at the muscles in my abdomen. Fuck, that was... not good. I was covered in mud and my own blood and a lot of the monster's. Still, I tugged the front of my leotard up and inspected my stomach. There was a pin-prick hole, maybe two inches to the left of my belly-button. It was oozing a fair bit of blood, but it wasn't spraying out or anything. "Dammit," I muttered. "Fran, you okay?" "I'm... I'm fine," she said. "You wouldn't happen to have bandages?" "I do, actually." I pulled out my IFAK from a thigh pocket, then hobbled over. My leg was sore, and squished in a bad way. Not too much bleeding, though. The talon hadn't pierced through the tough denim-like fabric of my pants. It had still scratched, but when I pulled my pant leg up... yeah, okay, that would bruise, and there was some bleeding, but it wasn't that bad. Fran fumbled with the first-aid kit one-handed, then I helped her, aware that I was on the dirtier side at the moment. Still, I got some bandages out, then directed her to a fallen log. "Can you reload one-handed?" I asked. "I dropped my pistol," she admitted. "That's fine," I replied, then handed her my revolver to hold for the moment, as well as a fistful of spare rounds. It gave her something to do while I undid the brace on her arm. The bites weren't that bad. The velociraptor didn't have the jaw strength to punch through the polymer frame, though it was a bit mangled. The teeth had cut some furrows into Ojou's arm, though. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from NovelHub. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. Spraying some disinfectant over the wound had Fran hissing in pain, but she didn't complain much, even as I wrapped a bandage around the cuts. "Alright... fuck, this hurts," I muttered. ʀᴇᴀᴅ ʟᴀᴛᴇsᴛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀᴛ novel※fire.net I didn't have much for my own wound. I shoved gauze into the hole, then stuffed an adhesive bandage over the whole thing. With my leotard pressing down on it, it was... good enough for now. "Okay," I said as I sat next to Fran. I started to reload. "Debrief? Ah, fuck, are there painkillers in that kit?" Fran opened the pack up, then pulled out a small plastic-wrapped set of pills. "Looks is a painkiller?" I took it, squinted at the instructions, it was just ibuprofen, so I figured I could take it. I bit the pack open and swallowed one of the pills dry. "You can have the other?" "No thank you," Fran said. "This was... dangerous." "Ambush predators gonna ambush," I said. "We moved too quickly. We should have stayed by the entrance, checked the space out, then moved in. Are you good to continue?" She hesitated, then nodded. "I am. Sorry, to say that I'm not used to this kind of pain. And... I feel like maybe I need to question the utility of my training." "Your training?" I asked. "It's always focused on combat against people. Never... monsters. That now feels like it was a great oversight. None of the sword-forms I know account for dinosaurs." "Yeah. They're kinda aggressive. Fast, too. But lighter than I expected? I dunno." I stood up, wincing a bit as my muscles pulled. It wasn't all bad, though. Sooth Minor Pain was taking some of the edge off, and the drugs would kick in eventually. Fuck if it didn't hurt when I flexed my core, though. "Alright, let's keep moving. Scouting is the name of the game, here." The next section was up and around. There was a walking space around the pond, then some large steps that looked mostly natural carved into the stone, as if it had just fallen apart that way. We took those up and around a corner, moving far slower. Around the bend, however, was a large clearing, one that didn't have so many hidden dinos. Instead, the damned things were frolicking around all over the place. The 'room' was a wide, long space with a cliff at the far end that dropped down towards what looked like a distant jungle. Like... two hundred yards down distant. Obviously that was the edge of the portal. There was even a convenient fog covering everything below. The centre of the clearing had a small rivulet running through it, but the greenery had been pushed back all around. Mostly by the monsters lingering in the space. Some were laying on large, flat rocks, soaking in the sun while flies buzzed around them. Others were play fighting and tussling in the mud, while still others arranged large nests made of fallen branches and dried up bones into comfy places to relax in. For some reason, it reminded me of finding a den of wild cats. Lions in the savannah? Or... some sort of jungle cat? Panthers lived in jungles, right? I stayed low to the ground, using some scraggly bushes for cover. They hadn't noticed us yet. "I count... seven," I muttered. "Likewise. There may be more in the bushes." I nodded slowly, then gestured back. We returned around the bend, and when we continued to talk, it was in a low whisper. "We'll want to be ready, then. Seven is... more than we can handle in one go. At least from up close." Her aim wasn't bad, for a civilian, but it wasn't up to even corpo standards. Her gun had a twenty-one round magazine, and I was pretty sure one hit wouldn't kill most of those. I had my shotgun, with ten shells plus one in the chamber, and my revolver with six. All told... more than seven shots, but that was if we were very lucky with both hitting and taking them out with ease. "Do you think it's possible?" she asked. "Sure," I said. "Just gonna need some doing. We'll have our guns ready. Take out those we can, then back up into here. This space should be just wide enough to fight side-by-side against them one or two at a time. I hope."