Chapter 142: The Forest People

“Yeah,” Jimmy sighed, “We lost a lot of hunters to the giants, but we’re hanging on. Tribes are trying their luck with us, they want to take our land, but one of our women killed one-hundred men yesterday.”

Jimmy was almost sure that this small group of hunters were also trying to invade the grasslands, even though they didn’t have the numbers to do so. He saw them as hostile already, however, there was one thing that confused him, and stopped him from killing them on the spot. He didn’t fully understand why they hadn’t tried to kill him and Anna. They had a clear advantage earlier on, when they were out of his radar, and yet not even a single arrow was shot.

This confused him, and Bonita confused him too, surprisingly. Her heartbeat was stable, she wasn’t panicking, so either she did not see them as enemies, or she was confident she could kill them all herself.

These two puzzles were difficult to figure out, so he tried to provoke the group, taunt them with indirect threats, and hints of great opportunities if they went to the grasslands. He wanted them to make a mistake, so he could excuse killing fifteen people.

He added, “If you want to invade us, you should know that we can still outnumber you, regardless of the hunters we lost.”

“Invade?” She pulled her head back in shock, “No… oh right, I hadn’t had the chance to say that we’re not going to kill you, my bad.”

She then nodded at her people, and they all lowered their bows, and loosened their grip on their arrows. They were cooperating.

Afterwards, the woman walked forward, and stretched her arm out so she could greet Jimmy. She kept her distance, because the large Quetzalcoatlus Northropi, otherwise known as Bonita, was eyeing her down as if she was a delicate meal, but her motives seemed a bit more clear now.

“We’re your friends,” She said, “I’m Zelna.”

“Jimmy,” He nodded lightly.

Jimmy walked a few steps forward, and greeted her. Rather than a handshake, they grabbed each other behind the wrist, and shook arms. This was how humans greeted each other in this world, from the looks of it.

Then, she backed away a few feet, and said, “We caught one of your traitors.”

Zelna then reached into her bag that was made out of scaly, dinosaur skin, and pulled something gruesome out of it. A human head!

She rolled the head towards him, and added, “He was boasting about abandoning ’the fools’ who fought giants. He was a quick fella, but even the quick ones have to sleep sometime.”

“I guess you did us a favor,” Jimmy said, and tried to stomach looking at a severed head.

This severed head unraveled some of his traumas from yesterday, where he saw plenty of flattened bodies, but he tried to put a brave face on. He was seen as a chief, even by the people that met him for the first time, so of course he had an image to uphold.

At last, he asked, “Did you come all the way here to show us this bastard’s head, Zelna? I do appreciate the effort, but you’re awfully close to our hunting grounds.”

“We want to respect your territory, as we’ve respected it for many summers,” She answered, “We’re not here to invade, but to ask your tribe if they need help. There is no shame in needing help, you lost your hunters very unfairly, so I’m guessing that it’s becoming hard to keep your bellies fed.”

She then added, “My people are the best hunters you’ll ever see, we can keep your children fed, until your tribe can get back on its feet, and then we’ll leave.”

Jimmy thought about her offer for a moment. It did look innocent, but then he remembered that he only counted fifteen people in this group. For a group that lived in the forest, fifteen was a considerably small group, it was almost a sad amount. They may be in trouble themselves, and so they were offering to help, since they didn’t have the numbers to take the grasslands by force.

Anna had the same suspicions, so she walked forward, and asked, “Where is your tribe located? How many of you are there?”

Zelna seemed hesitant to answer, but she saw no benefit in lying about it, so she said, “We don’t have a tribe, a home, damned dinosaurs destroyed it last winter. We lost most of our people… we feel your pain.”

Thus, the puzzle pieced itself together. These people were not as kind as they portrayed themselves to be, they were just desperate, and likely in constant danger too. Their camouflage may be a result of sleeping in bushes for months on end.

Jimmy was no monster, however, so he made them an offer, “Look, Zelna, it’s obvious that you don’t want to help, you just want to get out of the forest, and I get that, you lost your home, so how about we make a deal that we’re both comfortable with? You and I know damn well that you would try to invade us if you had enough people.”

Anna added to what her boyfriend said, “You even went far enough to kill a traitor for us, so you can convince us to accept you. It’s a nice gesture, but it also makes Jimmy right. You want to get out of this forest for good, and we can help you with that.”

“You can?” Zelna asked, and her scheme, her defensive walls were broken down in seconds, “What’s the deal, then?”

By being open to the deal, she confirmed that Jimmy and Anna read them like a book. She indirectly admitted what her scheme was, and now, the deal they had to make, was the kind that would keep them from scheming, especially once they made it to the grasslands. Jimmy didn’t want to have enemies disguised as friends hanging around his people.

“Dinosaurs hunt for us, Zelna, I tamed plenty of them, so we’re not going hungry. You can obviously help us hunt in the winter, since you know how to survive harsh winters, but as for now, we need people who can defend the grasslands.” He explained, and then pitched, “I can let you live with us, I can help all of you sleep well from today and onwards, without fearing that you’ll get eaten by a dinosaur in your sleep, but, I have to ask you… are you willing to protect the livelihood I can offer you, are you willing to protect the grasslands with your life? We need warriors, not hunters, that’s the deal I can offer you.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep