Chapter 51: Hunted

For the next two days Sobek tried to avoid the torvosaurs as much as possible, not wanting to risk any confrontation with them, not even the smallest and harmless; however, that doesn't mean that he hadn't spied them. After all, knowing the enemy was the key to surviving even in the most extreme and dangerous situation. The more he learned, the better chance he had of getting out from there alive and unharmed. As he already knew, they hunted in pairs; although they were a family group of about a dozen individuals, generally only two of them left the pack and went hunting. The others remained in the clearing waiting for them. Also, generally the ones that went to hunt were all young adults: the oldest ones or the youngest ones remained in the clearing, and they spent almost all their time lying around, cuddling, licking each other and playing. Even if they were just two, however, Sobek never dared to confront them. After all, two young adult torvosaurs were more than enough to defeat him. If it had been just one, Sobek could have faced it; but against two, it was a mad battle. Sobek had found that they mostly preyed the columbian mammoths. Their strategy was simple: one of them distracted the herd, while the other attacked from behind while the mammoths were distracted, inflicting a deep wound on one of them; after that they retreated and waited for it to bleed to death. At least until now they hadn't hunted other preys. Sobek therefore focused on capturing small or medium-sized animals, so as they couldn't notice his presence. In particular, he had gone hunting for carnivores. He hoped that if the torvosaurs didn't feel competition for resources, they wouldn't have bothered looking for him and could coexist. After the initial fear and a night of thinking, he realized that there is a way to have more chance to get out alive from that unpleasant situation: if he would have maximized [Regeneration], he would have been much safer and perhaps he would even have managed to emerge victorious in a two-on-one battle against the torvosaurs. [Regeneration] at level 5/5 could permit him to heal from deadly injuries in less than half a minute. That means that he could have healed from any wound that the torvosaurs would have inflicted to him, unless they would have attacked some vital point like the jugular. With [Regeneration] and [Deadly claws], he could no longer fear the torvosaurs so much. They would still have remained a danger, but not an absolute certainty of death. He might even had taken the risk and stayed with the young girl even if the torvosaurs had noticed him. However, that could only happen if both the skills were at their maximum level. Or at least, [Regeneration] needed to be at its maximum; even if it was just at level 4/5, [Deadly claws] was already a extremely powerful skill and Sobek could cut the iron with that, so it would have worked in the same way. But without [Regeneration] at maximum, he would never have dared to face the torvosaurs. Therefore, he had to collect skill points. Cave lions, bears, smilodons, wolves, hyaenodon, lesmesodon, thylacinus, dinofelis, amphimachairodus, arctotherium, dinocrocuta; every carnivorous mammals was useful for him. He also tracke and hunted giant prehistoric birds like gastornis or phorusrhacos, or giant monitor lizard like megalanias, or land crocodiles like kaprosuchus and araripesuchus. Even though they gave him very few skill points, Sobek urgently needed them. Unfortunately, due to the torvosaurs, most of the predatory mammals had fled. Only after two days of relentless effort, he had managed to hunt enough carnivores to upgrade [Regeneration] to level 3/5. Sobek tried to improve his hunting as much as possible: at night he used his nose and his developed senses to identify any prey, which then rushed to eat during the day. He constantly used [Ambush] to capture as many animals as possible and to hide from torvosaurs. He had also returned to the river several times to look for crocodiles, snakes and large fishes. Unfortunately, he needed at least 20 skill points to improve [Regeneration] at level 5/5, and that wasn't an amount that could be reached in one day or two. And already from the third day his opponents had begun to behave in a strange way: they changed paths, they continuously sniffed the air, and they had a decidedly more aggressive attitude. Sobek knew they were looking for him. They understood that there was another predator in the area and they wanted to eliminate it. Even if he hadn't attacked them, no predator would have tolerated a competitor in its territory. Sobek had tried to mislead them by changing his paths in turn, but the torvosaurs seemed determined to find him at any cost. He had considered fleeing, but he had rejected the idea: the situation wasn't so drastic yet. He still didn't want to abandon the young girl. However, catching preys has also become more difficult: it was complicated while he was a target himself. In fact, he didn't have obtained much experience in those days. He had to be careful, silent and he didn't have to leave traces. His survival was now a gamble: it was all about getting enough skill points before the torvosaurs found him. Sure, he still had the option of quitting the game by abandoning the child, but he was reluctant to do so: he still didn't know how she could affect his future (IF she would have affected it!), so he would have preferred both of them to come out of that uncomfortable situation unscathed. Fortunately, she too seemed to have understood that the situation was very dangerous and hadn't caused any trouble: she hadn't made any more noise, she had never abandoned the tree, she hadn't bothered him anymore. Apparently even she, although she didn't know much about the dangerous rules of nature, understood how much in danger they both were. So she had slyly chosen to indulge her protector and not make too much noise. By now she and Sobek no longer interacted with words, only with their eyes: every time he came back from his hunt, Sobek gave her a piece of food, she ate it, and then she spent all the time staring at him and mirroring herself in his huge eyes until she collapsed for tiredness. A strange form of communication had established between the two of them. If she saw that the spinosaurus was more relaxed, the young girl calmed down and she fell asleep more peacefully; on the other hand, if she saw him more tense, she became worried too and she stayed asleep for much more time. Thanks to this, Sobek was able to warn her to be careful even though he couldn't speak the human language. No verses, no voice: just their gazes that met each other and that conveyed their emotions, which in some way they both understood. Sobek remembered the mental breakdown the young girl had had just a few days before, and he was worried that this dangerous situation could affect her already bent psyche even more negatively. She had been traumatized countless times before, and she was probably constantly dancing on the edge of insanity. After Sobek started teaching her, the young girl seemed to have become calmer and more jovial, but now the spinosaurus could no longer do it. Sobek was worried about her, but there wasn't much he could do: with the torvosaurs nearby he couldn't afford any distractions. Even though he was doing it for her, though, he still knew it would only have added new traumas for that poor young girl. This whole situation was really irritating him. Damn, it was over a week now! Why the hell hadn't anyone come looking for that little plague yet!? ******** "Sir, captain Kenyatta is back and he asks to speak with you" "Finally!" Markus Jersey beamed. Jackson could only share his happiness. When they had established base camp they had sent several patrols to various directions of the forest to find even the smallest clue. Orders were not to disturb them if no information was found. So the fact that someone asked to be able to talk to them meant that finally there had been some developments. Abe entered. His uniform was very dirty and the bags under his eyes identified his tiredness. It was clear that he had spent a long time trying to decipher the tracks. "I'm at your service, sir" Jersey was impatient: "Speak, come on! What have you discovered?" "Sir, we found tire tracks. We assume they are those of the vehicles of the kidnappers. They were headed north-east" Abe answered. "Did you follow them? Have you found her?" Bethany asked, more nervous than her husband. Abe shook his head: "Unfortunately the tracks disappeared after a while due to the hard ground, but we doubt they went too far. We found a hollow where we could move base camp. From there we can start more patrols and have a better chance of finding the kidnappers... or what's left of them" Jersey was clearly disappointed, but he hid his disappointment well. "All right. Good job. Oz, get ready..." "Sir" Abe interrupted him. "Forgive me, but there is something else" Immediately the silence returned; his tone of voice made it clear that he was about to say something very important. He opened a pocket and took out a paper wrapper that wrapped something. "We found it near the valley I was talking about. We believe it is the reason why the kidnappers disappeared" Jersey nodded to Jackson, who took the package and opened it. He discovered that it was a tooth, but its size made his eyes go wide. It was at least forty centimeters long! Those of the tyrannosaurs reached a maximum of thirty! "The owner of this tooth must certainly have an enormous size" he murmured, swallowing his saliva. He fully agreed with Abe: if the kidnappers had encountered such a beast, surely they had been torn apart by it. "I don't know what kind of animal could have such teeth, but surely isn't something with people can confront without proper weapons" Abe said. "The only thing that I'm sure about is that this tooth surely belongs to a predator. A giant meat-eating dinosaur, actually, a true monster" Jackson was no expert, but by the size of the tooth he was pretty sure the creature was more than fifteen meters long, maybe even more than twenty! Abe wasn't wrong: whatever creature could reach such size was a real monster from the legends. If he hadn't known it was impossible, he would have believed that the tooth belonged to a dragon or some other mythological creature. Such large predatory dinosaurs had never been heard of. Jackson turned to Jersey and saw that his master shared his concerns. "We move to the area uncovered by the captain Kenyatta's patrol. Load up your heavy weapons" Jackson nodded; he fully agreed with his master.