My claw was pointing at an evolution. Specifically, it was pointing at the Child Sciza.

But even more specifically, my claw was hovering before a couple of words I’d glanced over before and hadn’t actually truly taken the moment to process, as my excitement got the better of me.

And those two words would be: Corpse Hatching.

Yes, I’d almost forgotten about that handy little skill.

Well… that kinda messes everything up.

I reread the Corpse Hatching description, to be sure it wasn’t worth skipping out on.

[Corpse Hatching]

From death, life bursts forth, the baby stronger when hatched from corpse.

Hatching inside of another creature’s body enables you to learn Skills, Traits, and Instincts that belonged to them. These are often hard to come by in a typical fashion.

Note: You must be able to fit inside the creature to hatch inside their body.

[Corpse Hatching] is a Skill that has no requirements.

Mmm…

The realist in me really wanted to just evolve and get it over with, but the gamer side—the dominant side—needed me to min-max my way to victory.

I couldn’t just… ignore the benefits Corpse Hatching would give me!

Just think about how many evolutions it could open for me in the future if I learned Skills, Traits, and Instincts I wouldn’t have been able to before!

Oh and, depending on how these evolutions went, I might stop being able to fit inside creatures to hatch myself. So it was probably best to use it as much as possible.

Ahh… Gamer me, you’re an awful individual, you know that?

Oh, gamer me knew that alright.

Fiiiiiine, I conceded to myself. I’ll go find a corpse to hatch in!

But as I struggled to get up, I realized that I was still exhausted. I rolled my eyes. Sleep first, then I would go find something to hatch in later.

Maybe Rex could help with that.

I dragged myself over to my makeshift bed, dropping into it, and let my eyes close.

When I woke up, the gorlen was gone. Which wasn’t unusual… except that it was daytime. And… I was pretty sure the thing was nocturnal?

I’m going to have to come up with a name for that guy.

I stood up, shaking off the sleepiness, and strolled up the hill to the outside world.

Now, to find a corpse!

As I was right now, I’d have to find something a little bit larger than a Deotrexaptor if I wanted a tight fit, but finding big monsters in this world didn’t appear to be that difficult, anyway, so I knew I’d find something.

I’d just have to be careful not to rub another one of those titans the wrong way.

So, I finally ventured out into the jungle again, pushing aside the cave’s covering.

My destination was the Siren’s Pond.

Hmm… Maybe, Rex’s Pond now?

Well, whatever. I was going to the watering hole. It was a decent walk, but I had previously paced it out when I first discovered the cave, so I knew how to get there, and just how far it would be.

So, only about twenty minutes later was I at my destination.

But I found something strange.

My talons clicked against the rocks on the jungle floor as I approached the break in the treeline. The sun over the open plains shone through like a wall of light, blinding me.

Then the sound of laughter reached my ears, and I immediately froze.

The sound wasn’t like Rex’s laughter when he’d been splashing me, and it wasn’t anything like the hooting of the Deotrexaptors.

No. It was a familiar sound. As close to a human’s laugh as I’d likely ever hear in this world. Maybe it was a monkey or something similar? But did monkeys even exist when dinosaurs did? I guess that could be a stupid question, because I’d seen squirrels, too.

It had thrown me off for a second, but I gathered my wits and crept behind a tree, peeking around it. What I saw shocked me.

My jaw dropped open. Standing there, beside the watering hole, was a human girl.

I mean… I hadn’t considered it, but now that I thought about it, that quartz tablet I found in the cave should’ve indicated that intelligent people with a writing system existed… But I was so caught up in the buzzing of the beetles, and the existence of death beams, that the logical connection just simply didn’t occur. I felt like an idiot.

Splash!

“Ah!” gasped the beautiful blonde girl, dressed in what I could best describe as a green fantasy bikini. Weird description, I know, but it definitely wasn’t a normal swimsuit material.

There was a handsome shirtless guy with brown hair splashing her with water from inside the pond, and he shouted out to her, laughing.

“Jigur dath! De vatten treen!”

What? What language is that?

“Na!” the girl shouted back. “Ter shak!”

I shook my head, puzzled. Did those words actually mean anything? Or were these humans just too primitive--no, I dismissed that thought. Their clothes showed too much skill for them to not understand language. I’m no anthropologist, but I imagine techniques like stitching would’ve never developed so well if humans couldn’t at least teach by speech.

As I watched the girl approach the water cautiously, and then step back when the guy went to splash her, the only thing I could think was that this reminded me of family gatherings. One particular cousin of mine was always trying to get everyone else in the pool.

“Jump in, the water’s fine!”

“No, it’s too cold!”

That’s frequently how those interactions went. And I could only imagine the same thing was happening here, but… I couldn’t confirm it.

Congratulations! You’ve learned a new language: [Yatten Lvl 1].

[Yatten Lvl 1]- Slight chance to recognize spoken Yatten.

Huh. I guess that confirms it.

I blinked. That definitely wasn’t a language I was familiar with. Certainly nothing from my world.

What were these two doing here? Didn’t they know there were massive dinos around? Did they not care?

Were they brought here from another world like me?