“Agggh! Would you please do something, already?!”
“Be silent! I cannot concentrate on the battle with your ceaseless blathering in the background!”
“Fear not, my liege! My barrier won’t be broken that easily!”
《Yeah, seriously! We’re fighting over here, so shut’cher trap and wait a minute!》
《Look how strong Sui is! Taaake this!》
Fel, Gon, Dora-chan, and Sui were all currently fighting their hardest. For all their complaints about my distracting them, it didn’t seem to be preventing them from enjoying the battle at all. It also didn’t do anything to stop the monsters that were trying their hardest to eat me for lunch!
Sure, Gon’s barrier’s keeping me safe, but it’s not stopping them from trying to kill me, and all those gnashing teeth are really doing a number on my nerves! Why’re they even this aggressive in the first place?!
“Just finish up quick and help me, please!” I shouted, shrinking farther into the ball I’d curled myself up into.
After we had dealt with the aftermath of our encounter with the little dinosaurs, we had once again set off into the woods. It had barely taken any time at all for another dinosaur to make an appearance—the first one that Fel had decided was worth his time to take on. It was big enough that I had to crane my neck to look up at it, with a spiked frill-like sort of thing running along its neck, and a pair of red eyes that were glaring straight at us. It let out a snort, then opened up its mouth to reveal a row of extremely sharp, pointed teeth.
Weirdly, I had a feeling that I’d seen the monster before. I had a really clear image of something just like it turning up in a movie I’d seen, and while I was mulling that over, it let out a screech that was also very much like the one the movie dinosaur had made—and that I really couldn’t describe in words in any other way—then charged straight at us, moving at a way faster clip than I’d expected it to be capable of.
“Heh. Finally, worthy prey! I shall deal with this creature,” Fel declared, stepping forward to take the dino on. I knew that he’d be perfectly fine, so I withdrew a short distance away from the battlefield with my other familiars.
I appraised the monster, and learned that it was apparently called an acrocanthosaurus. It was carnivorous, of course, and I was once again surprised to learn that it could apparently breathe fire—but this time, that was just the start.
“Hey, watch out! That thing’s supposed to spit acid!” I shouted.
“Hmph! Mere acid would not harm me in the slightest!” Fel shouted back as he dodged around the acrocanthosaurus, which was lashing out repeatedly to bite at him
Its movements were swift and sharp, but nowhere near impressive enough to keep up with Fel’s agility. That must have frustrated it, because a moment later, the acrocanthosaurus raised its head and opened its mouth wide. It was obviously about to spit something.
“As I said before, acid will have no effect on me—and while you may be swift to the creatures that live here, to me, your movements are so sluggish you might as well be standing still.”
Fel brought a foreleg down before him, letting loose what I’d come to see as his signature move: Rending Claws. The attack struck the acrocanthosaurus right in its chest, cleaving straight through it. The dinosaur’s head fell to the ground, and just like that, the battle was over.
For a moment, at least, peace had returned to the forest. The sound of Fel’s battle, however, seemed to have attracted quite a bit of attention, and before I knew it, dinosaurs started pouring in from all directions. Worse still, I could tell at a glance that every one of them was as nasty and vicious as could be. The local wildlife had thrown down the gauntlet, and there was no chance it would end in anything other than a no-holds-barred brawl.
Fel ended up squaring off against one of the biggest dinos of the bunch. A quick appraisal identified it as a giganotosaurus, and according to its description, it could both breathe fire and bite through pure scarletite.
Gon’s dinosaur, meanwhile, I knew the name of before I even appraised it: It was the tyrant lizard itself, a tyrannosaurus rex. My appraisal did, however, inform me that unlike the t-rexes I knew about, this one could breathe fire and bite through adamantite. Oh, and its claws carried a venom strong enough to inflict instant death.
Dora-chan was fighting a dinosaur called a carcharodontosaurus, and its appraisal results were much the same as the t-rex’s in that it could breathe fire and bite through adamantite. Instead of venomous claws, however, its claws could apparently slice through adamantite as well.
Finally, Sui was taking on a carnotaurus. It was a bit smaller than the dinosaurs my other familiars were fighting, but it had a pair of horns on its head and was fast enough on its feet that I had a feeling it rivaled the acrocanthosaurus in terms of sheer agility. Watching something that fast and deadly looking chase Sui around nearly gave me a fear-induced heart attack. Its appraisal text told me that it could breathe fire, bite through adamantite, and had an incredible capacity for running that ensured no prey would ever escape it.
While my familiars were fighting all those prehistoric terrors, I was stuck in the middle of it all, hoping against hope that they’d wrap it up quickly. The other dinosaurs, however, weren’t interested in waiting for their turns and decided to attack me instead. The ones that went after me were much smaller than the ones my familiars were locked in pitched battle with, but they still looked stupidly dangerous. The fact that they charged me en masse the second they laid eyes on me was all the proof I needed of that!
I was standing in a barrier, so none of the dinosaurs had actually been able to touch me, but they were snapping and gnashing their horrible, toothy jaws at me with everything they had. That wasn’t too surprising once I’d appraised them. I was facing down a pack of notoriously belligerent velociraptors.
Anyway, that brings us back to the present moment...
Chomp, chomp, chomp!
“Gaaah! Aren’t you guys done yet?!”
Fwooosh!
“Even these ones breathe fire?! Seriously?!”
No amount of flinching back was enough when it came to an onslaught like this. And, more to the point, I had a few thoughts about this situation on the whole.
“Okay, I know this is a different world and all, but there’s something seriously screwed up with these dinosaurs! Hey, Demiurge! You made this world, didn’t you?! Why the hell did you put fire-breathing dinosaurs in it?!” I shouted, complaining to the world’s creator deity, who happened to be an acquaintance of mine, mostly on reflex.
＜Oh! Well, yes, I suppose I might have gotten a touch carried away with them,＞ a voice in my head immediately replied. ＜I was inspired by the dinosaurs from your world, you see, but then I thought, ‘Why not give them my own personal touch?’ You know, add a splash of originality!＞
“Awfully casual about populating your world with vicious death lizards, aren’t you?! And why would they need a splash of originality?! They’re dinosaurs!”
＜To be completely honest, I’d actually entirely forgotten that there were any left alive at all! How interesting!＞
“You forgot?!”
＜You’d be surprised how easy it can be, sometimes! And considering you’re accompanied by two of this world’s mightiest beasts, I’m sure you’ll make it out just fine.＞
“That is so not the point here!”
＜Oh, whoops! Duty calls, but I’m sure you see how it is now. Fare thee well!＞
“Wha— Hey, Demiurge?! Demiuuuuuurge?!”