Chapter 65: Aftermath
He didn't bother figuring out why he had miscounted his bullets, now wasn't the time.
*SWISH*
The wind whipped as a massive claw tore apart the air that now occupied the space his head used to be in.
He had dived backwards as soon as he hit the ground.
The beast may be blind, but it wasn't dumb. It had dropped him only a moment ago and knew exactly where he would land.
'Thankfully it didn't bother to incapacitate me properly, probably due to its arrogance…'
'Shit, FOCUS!' Jacob thought as he snapped his mind back to the task at hand.
He kept getting sidetracked, used to the extra time overclock bought him.
*SWISH SWISH*
Two more strikes echoed around him as the thud of the chimera's tails resounded, all attempting to strike him down before he gained any distance.
Thankfully he had a grand total of 8% mana left, enough for him to activate analysis to 2x for a second at a time when the beast was about to attack.
Another three strikes from the beast and he was out of its range. Barely.
Jacob still held one hand over his left eye, well, the place where his left eye used to be.
Thankfully the bleeding seemed to have slowed, he wasn't sure how much blood he even had left considering the massive gash in his side.
Despite the pain, he kept himself perfectly silent as the beast ceased its attacks, turning its head around slowly, searching for him with its ears.
Jacob assumed it would do this. Pretty much every living being's 2nd most useful sense was sound. While he doubted the chimera had developed something akin to sonar so soon after being blinded, it was certainly possible to pounce in the direction of noise.
He placed his feet down slowly, cautiously, keeping his one good eye on the chimera as he took silent and steady steps.
If he tripped here, he would die instantly.
He had only survived the first capture due to the chimera's sadistic nature. The creature's enraged expression ensured him that it wouldn't be playing around on this occasion.
Suddenly the creature did a large spin, straightening its tail out to its longest possible form. As it spun so did its tail, wiping out everything at the height of Jacob's waist.
In that moment Jacob dropped to the floor, making himself as flat as possible.
He had elected to lie down since jumping would have been difficult in his current condition and even if he managed to clear the tail his landing would have alerted the beast to his location.
As it stood the tail whipped past him, missing his back by a hair's breadth.
Jacob lay there on his stomach and watched as the beast finished its spin, looking around while its ears twitched left and right. Soon after, it turned in the direction of the forest and took unsteady steps in that direction.
Only once the beast was a good 100 meters away did Jacob slowly rise from the ground, keeping his eye trained on it the whole time, and his breathing suppressed.
He only turned away from it when he saw it make its way back into the tree line, hidden from view.
That's when he began to feel it.
The exhaustion.
Everything hurt, especially his side.
His eye didn't seem to hurt much but he was pretty sure he was in shock. The price for this small respite would be paid in pain later.
He limped back towards the frontline, dreading the task ahead of him.
Most of his battle with the beast had taken place at the back of the house. On one hand, this meant that the smaller beasts were not present as they were currently in front of the house on the main dirt path.
On the other hand, the only way back to the frontline was through those very beasts.
Something he wasn't looking forward to.
*Thunk*
"Ah! Fucking of course…" Jacob said having just tripped over the dead body of a small raccoon-like beast.
'My depth perception is gone' He thought.
The fact that he didn't have both eyes hadn't sunk in, honestly the last few minutes were a blur.
'Now that I think of it, where did that bullet come from?' Jacob questioned.
[Final round was located in the chamber of the firearm. Misunderstanding source: Query regarding bullets in magazine instead of total ammunition count]
'You're kidding me…'
Such a basic mistake had both almost killed him and saved his life at the same time.
If he had known about the extra round, he might have taken a shot earlier in the fight. That might have given him an advantage that would have allowed him to escape.
On the other hand, the fact that he had accidentally saved the last bullet until the last moment allowed him to escape alive.
A quick look at his mana bar told him he was down to his last 2%. If it wasn't for his focus on getting back to the warriors alive, he would probably be afflicted with severe mana deficiency.
He came to the side of the house he had run through.
He didn't really have a plan to get back. He couldn't dodge around the creatures again, even if it weren't for his lacking mana and the rampant blood loss, his loss of depth perception would get him killed before he made it 4 steps.
So, what was he to do?
As he leaned on the barrack's now rickety frame a new sight greeted him.
Thorns.
Right at the frontlines between men and beasts.
Large green coils of vine sprouted from the earth, forming a 2-meter-tall wall that kept the beasts at bay. The sharp barbs that grew out of the wall haphazardly easily sliced the flesh of the beasts with weaker defences. Those with stronger hides and chitin plating found that their strikes were lost in the vines, trapped amongst the growing greenery.
As the wall reached 3 meters in height Jacob noticed something else.
Those very thorns were coming from him.
This was much to Jacob's surprise.
'Hey captain, I know you're suspicious of how the protector bloke died but this seems a bit fucking extreme!'
However, the annoyance and dread soon gave way to joy.
'Oh captain you beautiful bastard. I take it all back I could goddamn kiss you!'
The thorns advancing towards him weren't there to attack him, instead, they formed a corridor, down which 2 warriors hurried as they fought back some of the larger beasts attacking its edges.
Jacob stumbled forward as he finally remembered to place his empty gun back in its holster.
He hadn't even gotten the chance to use the knife…
"Sir! Can you walk?" One of the warriors inquired.
"I'll manage" Jacob replied.
He was too tired to put on a strong front, but he thought he should at least attempt to keep in character.
The warriors guarded him with the help of the thorns as Jacob did his best to emulate a more able-bodied person.
For once he managed to complete a simple action without it spiralling into chaos and they returned to the thorn wall properly.
Immediately after doing so the corridor, they had just used began to wilt into nothing as the thorn wall grew thicker and taller in size.
That's when he spotted the man in the sash, the captain. He was kneeling on the ground, his hands buried in the dirt as perspiration formed on his forehead.
"Cog Jaco-" the captain started as he drew closer.
"Result of the rescue operation and total casualties?" Jacob asked, cutting the man off again.
Although the captain was once again slightly agitated, he replied without looking away from the wall.
"This morning we totalled 33. As this was a diplomatic mission the escort was 3 squads, meaning 15 warriors, myself as their captain and Cog Michael. On the servant side, there were 15 total, I don't know their individual roles, as well as the head butler, and of course yourself."
"Now we number 21. Of our warriors, only enough men for 2 squads remain, and that count includes myself. Not to mention that although they are well trained, the squads will be made of survivors from the original squads, and won't necessarily have fought together before. Normally we would spend at least a week running drills to instil a sense of trust and teamwork but we have no time for that."
"Of the servants only 10 remain, the final two that were trapped in the wreckage were already dead, meaning there were only 6 survivors. Sadly, many of the servants died quickly in the beast's initial attack. Of the remaining living servants, one is the woman who was saved by that brave boy when you arrived, then there is the boy himself. Of the final two survivors, one was simply lucky as they were cleaning a portion of the barracks when the beasts attacked, the other was one of the men who joined your rescue team."
Jacob sat there, astounded by the influx of information.
He quickly snapped himself out of it, he would have time to unpack what had happened later.
"Good, take command for the remainder of the battle" Jacob said.
He then swiftly walked away. Well, it was swift considering his current max speed. He then put his observational skills to a very low-level test, finding a stump of wood that happened to be nearby.
He sat down on it…
And promptly passed out.
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