*Hoot* *hoot*
The bright yellow beaked tropical avian perched itself on a viney tree far above, with a nut grasped in its beak. It broke the nut against the side of the tree and ate the contents within, the cracked shells falling down onto the forest floor below.
*Thunk*
Rather comically, the discarded nutshells hit Devon right on the head.
The dwarf striding beside Devon broke into a big smile. "You can't catch a break can you, eh?" he jousted.
Devon groaned. "Really, I can't."
His life was just jam packed with danger since the moment he reincarnated on this continent. To him, a falling nutshell was just as bad as waking up in a deserted village. Granted, the ramifications were nowhere near the same, but it felt bad nonetheless. Kind of stung his pride a bit to have something as stupid as a toucan treat his head as a garbage can.
As they penetrated deeper into the thick rainforest, the amazon women leading the way for the dwarven convoy used their spears to cut away the vines and leaves so that they could proceed. They cleared a path so efficiently that it left Devon's mouth gaping open in awe. How could humans perform a task like that so physically perfectly, without a single wasted movement from his perspective?
Such was the skill and dexterity of the amazons, who inhabited mountainous rainforests and maneuvered through them like it was no problem at all. This was truly their territory now.
As they walked, Devon noticed a thick running stream right next to where they were walking.
"Hang on, let me grab some water," he said, starting to jog forward to the water's edge.
However, the tribal healer beauty with two teal triangular stripes facing towards the center of her face stopped him in his tracks with a spear across his body. "No. Not safe."
Devon slowly backed off, eyeing the water with renewed caution. As he backpedalled, he caught a glimpse of two yellow eyes from the foliage above the water bank on the other side. Then another pair of yellow eyes appeared. And then two more.
"Jaguars!" shouted one of the amazon beauties. She brandished her spear, the spear tip accentuated by a plume of fur and leaves right underneath it, and then ringed by a braid of round and shiny black orbs of ceremonial significance.
The female amazon's spear stance looked like another version of the graceful blonde female Knight Aurora's spear stance, the one who gave Devon his first impression of magic swordsmanship back at the blockade against the howler monkeys, the blockade that eventually got completely blown apart by the behemoth. She seemed to be acquainted with the backrooms Madame Elisa. Hm. Devon wondered if she made it out alright.
"We've got company, lads!" shouted the dwarf to the rest of the convoy. Instantly, the dwarves began to unsheath their weapons, some of them working together as a group to lug down heavy war contraptions from their convoy. The mules that were dragging the convoy neighed in panic, but the pack animals were quickly given a puff of soothing clay-blue mist to calm their nerves from one of the dwarves' puff-ball-things.
Numerous spotted jaguars emerged from the foliage, each one nearly twice the size of the jaguars Devon was familiar with from his home planet, with a different shade of fur than he was used to seeing as well. With his run-in with the gorilla-like howler monkeys of this world clear in his mind, the young man knew better than to underestimate the power of the local fauna in this world. Devon counted at least seventeen of them, with a few juveniles that were still big enough to be deadly.
With a flash of movement, the jaguars leapt from their side of the running stream's bank, landing in the water but quickly regaining their footing and clinging onto the dwarven convoy's side of the river as they tried to reemerge.
*Splash*
The two amazons were quick, the tribal healer Vesta and her accompanying amazon with a messy bun instantly sticking their spears into the water, driving the jaguars back before they could resurface.
"Echo, there's one to the left!" Vesta shouted to her female amazon companion with a messy bun.
"Got him!" the messy bunned amazon known as Echo replied to her superior.
Devon unfurled the bundle of cloth that he used to cover his moonlight steel sword with the Mjolnir's pommel, and blinked in surprise by the ratio of swords in the retinue of the dwarves. From his understanding, he thought that dwarves preferred maces and hammers and axes to swords. But there were just as many swords in the mix in the hands of the dwarves as the other aforementioned weapons.
As he unsheathed his incomplete divine weapon, the braided beard dwarf from earlier showed a look of surprise. "By Hrothgar, the craftsmanship on that weapon is unbelievable," he muttered.
Before he could say anymore, a sneaky jaguar pounced onto the busty tribal healer Vesta from her blind spot on the side and knocked her to the ground, its jaw snapping near her neck.