Chapter One Hundred and Ten - Choices "Okay, I think that's good," I said. Fran nodded, then tugged her shirt down. When I thought about moments where I'd be on my knees next to a woman with her shirt tugged up, my mind usually went on to fantasize moments that were a lot more interesting and hot than this. At the moment, Fran was sitting on a log, my shotgun resting next to her, fully reloaded, and her handgun nearby as well. We had moved away from the corpses of the monsters to a spot a few yards away, mostly to avoid the stench. I'd done what I could to help, but my skill as far as first aid stuff went was a little lacking. I made a mental note to look into that. I was pretty sure Luna Corp had mandatory first-aid stuff. Actually, I wasn't pretty sure. I knew it because I'd done the training. But that was months ago, and I could definitely use a refresher. "Try moving?" I asked. She twisted her body to the left, then to the right. "It's a little tight, but nothing too bad. I've had bras that pinched more." The wound was on her left side, about four inches to the left of her sternum. It hadn't pushed through her ribs. In fact, it hadn't broken any ribs either. What it had done was rip through her shirt and cut pretty deeply and messily into her skin. The wound was gross, and one of the tongue's little porcupine needles had remained jammed in there, but at least it was clean now and covered up. "Okay," I said as I smacked my knees and stood up. "So... we need to make a choice." "A choice?" Fran asked. "We either move on, or I call it quits and start over." She stared for a moment. "What would you do, ordinarily?" "Move on," I said instantly. "Neither of us are injured enough that we can't at least look into the next part of the dungeon. If the next room obviously needs us at our top, then I'd give up and start over. With what we've learned so far, we'll do much better next time." "I see. But only you will take that knowledge back." "Yup!" I said. "Shit's not fair, I know." She nodded. "I know how life is. That's nothing new. Usually, I'll admit, the unfairness is to my advantage." I supposed being the eldest daughter of a corporate overlord had its perks. "So... you tired enough to call it quits?" I asked. She grunted as she stood up. "No. I suppose this will do. I can live through the pain, especially knowing that it'll give an advantage to a future version of myself. My goodness... I haven't even begun to think through all of the implications of such an ability, and already I'm seeing how it would make me think differently." "It's something," I said. "It's dangerous," she replied. "But there's no lack of dangerous people around, is there?" What was I supposed to say to that? "We'll keep moving," I decided before scooping up my shotgun. The cliff-side area was pretty large, and I really didn't feel like scouting it out. Still, it was probably worth doing, and I figured Fran could use a break. So I left her by the entrance to the next area (a cave mouth, that descended down and then seemed to rise up some ways in, so at least we weren't about to go cave diving) and then did a circuit of the place. I found eggs. Big ol' dino eggs. They looked like they were about as large as an ostrich egg, maybe a bit bigger, and I had no idea what to do with them. Still, there might be some worth in taking them along? Someone in one of those fancy Semaphore-like restaurants would probably pay a grand to eat sunny-side-up velociraptor eggs. ...That someone might have been me. I'd pay that much, if I had money leaking out of my ears enough to afford that. Other than that, however, there wasn't much of worth. Maybe some of the plants had medicinal value, and I knew that the dead dinos at least had meat that was worth harvesting. This was a D-rank dungeon, which made that D-rank meat, which was probably fillet-mignon prices for even the gristle. Unfortunately, there weren't any chests with hidden loot or cool toys. That was pretty normal. There was definitely a correlation between the level of civility found within a portal and the quality of the loot. Fully 'natural' ones didn't have convenient chests in them. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. I joined Fran, made sure she was feeling alright, then we pushed into the cave. It was, unsurprisingly, rather dark and gloomy, but it only lasted a while before we climbed out on the other side and found ourselves in a tight switch-back with crumbling rock walls and large scratchmarks on the muddy soil. We slowed down, approaching the next area carefully, and that was the right move. It was a boss room. Or something like that? Sub-boss, maybe? The space was large and open, with a few stone pillars dotted throughout. The bushes and underbrush looked like it had been beaten back, all to make space for a small group of dinos. Three normal-looking ones, and one that stood out as very abnormal. They were a head taller than the others, with eyes that were so blue that they glowed. They were focused on a carcass at their feet, some sort of other dino? Whatever it was, they were chomping down on its insides. The bigger velociraptor had a long row of spines that started at the nape of its neck and ran down its back all the way to its tail. The damned thing had a thagomizer! "A caster?" Fran guessed in a low whisper. "You think they're smart enough for that?" I muttered back. She nodded. "They're hardly stupid, and innate magics are common enough. There's magic in the very air here. It wouldn't be impossible to learn some spells through trial and error alone. Even if they're too stupid to teach each other directly..." "Yeah," I said to fill the silence. Only four enemies. We could handle that much. But there was no easy space to use to our advantage here. No good cover. Just a lot of open ground and enemies that could run that distance in about ten seconds. Maybe that was even being generous. Call it five long seconds. I could kill one, maybe two of them, in that time, sure. Maybe Fran could take out another. That big one worried me. I chewed on my lower lip. "Well... shit, nothing for it, huh?" "Just like that?" Fran asked. "Yeah." I unsheathed my sword and laid it on the ground by my feet. "I'll let you take the first shot." I pulled out my revolver, then checked the position of my shotgun on its sling by my side. I'd want to be able to grab it quickly. Fran nodded, squared her shoulders, then got into the proper shooting stance. She aimed in the general direction of the dinos. I couldn't pick out which she was aiming for. I aimed for the big one in the middle, though it was in a bit of a depression in the soil, and the others were covering it a little. Fran's handgun barked. One of the velociraptors squawked and spun around. She fired again a half second later, after taking aim again. Slow and steady, then. I aimed myself, trying to focus past the thunder in my chest and the ache in my muscles. Feathers lined up in my sights, and I pulled the trigger. My gun roared, the recoil hitting my palm like a hammer blow. One of the prehistoric birds went down. Fran kept firing as they started to run our way. A second died... And then they all glowed a pale blue as the largest one in the bunch screeched. The bird I'd thought was dead rose up, and I was certain I was seeing its flesh knitting back together. "Fuck! Healer. Take it out!" We both focused on the bigger dino. Fran hit it a few times, then I nailed it in the chest and its spell cut off abruptly and its steps faltered. Fran fired again, then again. I whiffed my next shot, cursed, thumbed the hammer back, then hit with the penultimate. The big dino went down. I switched targets, fired, then dropped the gun. It was out. The fight from there got a little hectic. The dinos had made it to our position, but their leader was dead and the rest weren't in perfect shape. They were in less-perfect shape as I started firing buckshot as if the shells were on sale. Fran stepped up, lightsword appearing to slice a tongue out of mid-air, and that was all the stalling I needed to pump a few last shells into the final monster. "Well... shit, that worked," I said. "Yes, but now I'm out of ammunition," Fran replied. ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ 𝗻𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹~𝓯𝓲𝓻𝓮~𝚗𝚎𝚝 "Oh..." I looked at my own guns, then touched my pocket. "Uh oh."