Chapter 86: Temper Tantrum
I knew it didn’t sound good, but I really wished that the Bothrops lanceolatus was heading home, and maybe it had a family of four waiting for it.
It would have made my life so much easier if they were all together. But no such luck. Instead, I was stuck tramping through an overgrown jungle, looking for another ’path’ created by something I was hunting.
I had asked Jun Li if I should just start putting the tracking devices on them and bringing them up alive, but he pointed out that if it was so ’easy’ to kill the things, I should just keep them.
But I didn’t even know if my plan would work when I implemented it. I was damn lucky in that regard, but there was nothing to say that my luck would hold out.
I yawned and heard my stomach growl. Looking around, I found a good place to sit down, just off the path. Thinking it would be safe, I took off my backpack and sat down with my back against a tree. Digging into the bag, I found another energy bar. It tasted like shit, but at least it worked.
I let out another yawn, wishing that I could have brought coffee with me. However, I was worried that it would make me even more dehydrated than the jungle would have and decided to leave it on the ship—regret #216.
Opening the bar, I had just raised it to my mouth when something dropped from the tree behind me and wrapped something furry around my throat. It jerked hard, causing me to lose my grip on my food and backpack.
That was it. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back as far as I was concerned. I don’t mind animals trying to kill me. It was what they did naturally when finding something they considered to be prey, but I am no one’s prey.
I gripped onto the furry appendage with both hands, forcing my fingers between whatever it was and my throat, creating enough room to allow me to breathe, albeit shallowly. Still, air was air. I activated my armor, and as soon as it was in place, it created a better barrier to ensure I kept breathing.
Now more than a bit ticked that I was being dragged behind something again, only this time up a tree; I didn’t even bother to see what had grabbed me. I activated my wrist blades and shoved them up over top of my head.
When I heard a painful screech, I knew that I had managed to strike something. However, I hadn’t managed to inflict enough pain for whatever it was to drop me. Instead, it almost seemed like it gripped me tighter. Luckily for me, I couldn’t feel a thing, thanks to my armor.
It let out another piercing shriek as blood started to pour down over the visor of my helmet. I wasn’t worried at that moment; I knew it was probably going to bleed to death long before it got me where it wanted me. No, that wasn’t what made me worried at all.
What made me worried was the number of answering screams that seemed to echo throughout the forests.
Fuck. Buddy did come alone. This meant that even if I managed to get rid of this one, I would have a lot more on my plate afterward.
Plate... I wonder if they were edible. Maybe I’ll try and figure that out after they no longer try to eat me.
I mean, the furry rope around my neck could be a tail, and the screech definitely would have passed for a primate on Earth. Maybe I was being dragged off by monkeys. That was fine. Anything but chimps, and I was good.
I looked up, and, fuck my life; it looked exactly like a chimp with longer teeth. Yeah, this wasn’t going to go too well.
I was somewhat surprised when I first learned that chimps were one of the most ferocious primates, next to humans, that ever existed. They were highly intelligent, territorial, and liked to eat meat. Specifically, the meat of other chimps that wandered into places they shouldn’t be.
Yeah, they might look cute and adorable, but they were definitely high on the list of things I didn’t want to fuck with.
And yet, here I was, being dragged up a tree by one very pissed-off primate.
Have I mentioned how much I hated this planet?
With a sigh, I analyzed my options. The first one was to let it finish dragging me wherever it wanted and then kill it and any other chimps around. The second option involved killing it now, falling to the ground, and then dealing with whatever primates might challenge me after, or I could throw a massive temper tantrum, use the Doomsday device, blow up the chimp that was currently contemplating eating me, along with whatever was inside the blast radius.
You know what? I always wanted to throw a temper tantrum. I used to envy the kids that could let loose enough to be able to scream and carry on like no one was watching.
Fuck it. I was having a bad day. Temper tantrum it was.
But first, I would need to make sure that Night was safe and secure. I disengaged my helmet but kept the armor around my neck for breathing purposes. I looked around, trying to find the cute little thing, but he was nowhere to be found. "Night! I am going to blow shit up. Get over here if you don’t want to be caught in the blast zone!"
I heard a chirp just off to my left side. Turning my head, I saw Night racing up the tree beside me. Realizing that this was not the time to melt over his cuteness, I held my arms out to him. "Jump, I’ll catch you!"
Night quickly jumped into my arms, and without asking, my armor merged over top of him, encasing him in the protective shield. Now was the time to blow shit up.
With a big smile on my face, I reactivated the armor.
"Activate Doomsday mode," I said. I was really going to enjoy this.
"Activating Doomsday mode," returned my helmet.
"Fire!"
