✦ ✦ ✦
《Boo! You’re not gonna beat Sui that easy! Take this!》Sui said. Barely a moment later, all three of the dinos reeled back and let out horrible, screeching shrieks of pain. They let go of Sui immediately and fell to the ground, their limbs flailing wildly.
《Yikes!》 Dora-chan grunted.
“I see. It secreted acid into them,” Fel said.
“Gruesome, but effective indeed. I can think of few attacks more assured to finish off a foe,” Gon noted as he watched the dinosaurs dissolve from the inside out.
《Hee hee! That’s right! Sui’s super strong!》 the slime declared with a proud little dance-like wiggle.
“Sui...” I muttered. I was already feeling drained.
“Do not let your guards down. The main force approaches,” Fel warned.
“Wait, what main force?”
“Those three were merely a patrol, my liege,” Gon explained.
“Huh? Wait, so that means...”
“They are here. They may be weak, but their numbers are great. Dora, Sui, do what you can to eliminate them on your own!”
《Can’t say I like getting sicced on the small fry, but eh, what the hell! Let’s rumble!》
《Yeaaah! Sui’ll work hard and beat them all up!》
I could hear a thudding noise off in the distance—the sound of countless little dinosaur feet charging right at us. A moment later, the hoard arrived.
“Holy crap, that’s a lot of them!” I yelped. Seeing the whole cluster of them all at once also finally helped me make the connection and remember where I’d seen them before. “Wait, I know those things! I saw them in a movie once! They’re small, but really nasty, like land-bound piranhas!”
Shouting, it turned out, was probably a mistake. A group of dinos broke off from the main pack and charged straight at me.
“Gah! No, not this way! Not this way!”
《No bullying Master! Take this!》
Pew pew pew!
《Can’t let you hog all the glory, Sui! I’m getting in on this! Hiyah!》
Shwick shwick shwick!
The air was quickly filled with acid bullets courtesy of Sui and pillars of magic ice courtesy of Dora-chan.
“Oh—Dora, Sui? You would do well to not draw too close to them,” Gon said.
Fwooosh!
《Whoa, yikes!》
“Yes, as you can see, they breathe fire.”
《You could’ve friggin’ said so earlier, Gon!》
“Yes, yes, my apologies. Let that warning carry forward—many of the monsters in this vicinity are capable of it.”
《Oh, really? That was a pretty wimpy fireball compared to mine, though! I’mma show them what real fire breath looks like!》
FWOOOOOOSH!
Dora-chan let out such a violent burst of pseudo-dragon fire, it almost seemed like he was trying to immolate all of the little dinosaurs at once.
“Whoa! Too far, Dora-chan! You’re gonna set the forest on fire!” And while I’m at it... “Why the heck do the dinosaurs in this world breathe fire, of all things?!”
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《Heh heh! We beat up aaall of them!》
《Buncha wimps, seriously! We didn’t break a sweat!》
Sui and Dora-chan had made such short work of the pack of small dinosaurs, it felt like they’d barely even qualified as a warm-up.
“Naturally. I would expect no less from the two of you,” Fel commented.
“We’ll need to find much mightier foes for them to be a match for you,” Gon said.
I’m sorry, really? They wiped out a whole horde of piranha-dinos in the blink of an eye, and that’s your reaction...? And fire-breathing ones, at that?
It really didn’t help that the dinosaurs’ remains had been left scattered all around the vicinity. It was pretty gruesome. “I’m glad you took care of them and all, but we’re not gonna get any materials out of these things, are we...?” I said as I glanced over their charred, partially melted corpses.
“And why would that be an issue? Their meat is unpalatable, regardless,” Fel replied. “Moreover, carrying such petty prey back with us would hardly be worth the effort, even if they were whole.”
“If you’re hoping to secure materials, my liege, you’d do far better aiming for larger prey!” Gon noted.
I almost gave in and left the dinosaur corpses behind, but at the last second, I changed my mind again. Fel and Gon were going on and on about how they weren’t a big deal, sure, but could I really trust their perspectives? The dinosaurs seemed pretty rare, after all. I’d certainly never heard of monsters like them before.
If Fel and Gon were right, and this place really was home to strange and rare monster breeds like Ouranos had been, then it seemed very likely that they would be the sort of monsters that the guild would only see cross their butcher’s workbench every whatever-hundred years. In other words, the tiny dinosaurs that Fel and Gon were so eager to dismiss could be worth an awful lot to the Adventurer’s guild, if only for the sake of studying them. I remembered Willem offhandedly mentioning something to that effect when I had brought him the monsters we’d found in Ouranos, which was probably why he’d bought all of them, no exceptions.
Considering all that, I decided to snap up at least a few of the dino corpses before we went along on our way. Needless to say, I went for the relatively unmutilated ones.
“What exactly do you hope to accomplish by carrying such petty weaklings with you?” Fel grumbled.
“I mean, I know you and Gon don’t think they’re anything special, but quick question: Have any humans even been here? Like, at all?” I asked, giving Fel and Gon an appraising glance.
“I neither know nor care,” Fel said.
“Nor I, I’m afraid,” Gon added.
“Of course not,” I groaned. They hadn’t thought any of this through at all, so I took a moment to explain everything I’d been considering to them. “So, long story short, monsters in a place that people can’t get to like this would probably be really valuable to the Adventurer’s guild, strong or not!”
“I-Is that so? Do as you will, then,” Fel conceded.
“Y-Yes, quite,” Gon agreed. “No need to refrain from collecting them on our behalf, my liege.”
Great—I won’t, then.
That settled my course of action: I’d be picking up any monsters that we killed, in the hopes that the guild would be able to put them to good use. That, hopefully, would spare me from another of Willem’s patented lectures. Actually, if I’m being honest, that was my biggest objective.
I just hope that bringing him some new and compelling monster materials to look into will be enough to spare me his wrath.