Days easily passed in a blur when one were constantly dealing with shit.
Training became more intense, pushing them past their limits to the point where all Rus wanted was to find a corner, curl up, and sleep it all off. That was the thing about being superhuman — it meant they had to work them ten times harder than normal soldiers just to keep them exhausted. More weight, longer runs, harder drills. Every day felt like they were testing how far a superhuman body could break before it snapped.
At some point, he just gave up and crawled under a truck to catch some rest. The shade was cool, and he passed out almost instantly, ignoring the noise, the heat, and the stink of fuel underneath the truck.
Course, hiding from the Sergeant was a task in itself.
The man was a goddamn bloodhound.
But today? Today, they had a day off.
So they did what any exhausted group of guys would do while not being able to find a place to drink or ball. Sat near the trucks, bullshitted around, and watched another batch burn Goblins.
Dan leaned against one of the wheels, arms crossed, looking half-asleep. Peter, Prokop, and Gino sat around a crate, watching the flames in the distance. The smell of burning Gobs carried over which rancid, greasy, something between burning hair and rotten eggs.
Prokop, in his usual retardation, decided to start a conversation no one asked for.
"All I'm saying is," he began, his voice serious, "since they aren't human anyway, why don't we just farm these Gobs like cattle?"
Gino groaned. "Because they're dirty as shit? Who the fuck wants to eat them?"
"Yeah," Prokop replied, deadpan. "They smell like shit. And they eat shit."
"Exactly," Gino shot back. "So why the fuck are you even bringing this up?"
Peter, the only one of them with half a functioning brain on a good day, chimed in. "If we're talking about humanoid livestock, wouldn't it make more sense to go after Minotaurs? They're bigger. And, you know… actually resembles beef."
Prokop was unfazed. "Takes too much effort. Goblins breed fast. They're dumb, easy to catch, and grow way faster than Minos."
Dan scoffed. "It's like you've never seen a Goblin before. Covered in boils, warts, pus, and their noses are constantly dripping with phlegm. Who the fuck would want to eat that?"
"We could clean them."
"No," Dan said flatly. "We can't. And even if we could, it would take years to make them viable as livestock. It's not efficient."
To be fair, Prokop had a point if they ignored the entire "eating disease-ridden humanoids" part.
Goblins were vermin. They bred fast, died easily, and had no place in human society.
"The purpose of those fuckers is to die," Gino said, tossing a pebble at the ground. "We don't raise them. We exterminate them. That's the plan. This planet isn't big enough for another humanoid race."
Rus nodded. Simple logic. They were not them. And therefore, they didn't need to exist.
Still, there was a question he had to ask.
"So," Rus said, stretching out his aching legs, "if they were hot, elf-looking… it'd be different, right?"
"Of course," Gino said without hesitation. "If they're pretty, then we can compromise. If we can look at it, get hard, and stick our cocks inside it, then I'm willing to negotiate."
Dan, Peter, Prokop, and Russ all nodded in agreement.
Because when it came down to it, they were still just men.
The conversation could've ended there.
But, of course, it didn't.
Because once they're sitting around, half-baked from exhaustion, watching flames rise in the distance while the smell of burnt Goblin lingers in the air, their brain starts grasping for entertainment.
And nothing was more entertaining than talking out of their asses.
Peter scratched his chin, pretending to think real hard.
"Alright, so Orcs?" he asked. "They're technically humanoid, but they're not pretty. Where do they fall on the kill-or-compromise scale?"
Gino clicked his tongue. "Depends."
"On what?"
"On if they've got tits and ass."
Dan burst out laughing. "Of course. That's the line."
"Listen, listen." Gino held up his hands. "There's ugly and there's 'I can make it work' ugly. Some of those Orc chicks? Stacked. Sure, they've got fangs, but I'm willing to negotiate."
Peter nodded thoughtfully. "So personality doesn't matter?"
"No," Gino said, dead serious. "I'm not looking to marry them. I want an onahole you dumbass."
Rus snorted. "So let me get this straight. Gobs? Exterminate. But if something's fuckable, we'll consider peace talks?"
Gino grinned. "Exactly."
"Good god," Dan muttered, rubbing his face. "It's like you fuckers are so thirsty that you'd fucked a female Orc… do those things even exist?"
It was a question no one wanted to answer. Probably because he've a feeling it'll turn into a bet on who'd stick their dick inside a monster during their time here as soldiers.
The Gob cremation ended about an hour later. The fresh batch of trainees had finished sweeping the area with flamethrowers, leaving nothing behind but charred skeletons and blackened earth.
The instructors didn't even bother making them go inspect the results. They already knew.
Instead, they were left to their own devices.
Someone brought out a cheap deck of cards and a handful of them started playing near the supply crates. A few of the artillery guys had snuck off to smoke, probably not tobacco.
It was one of the few times they actually got to sit back and relax.
Didn't last long.
Just as he was about to win his second hand, an officer strolled into camp.
He wasn't one of theirs, not an instructor, not someone from Counter HQ. He wore a different uniform, one of the insignias of United Humanity's Expansion Forces.
"Alright, listen up," he barked, hands behind his back. "We need some volunteers."
Instant silence.
Because everyone knew what that meant.
"Volunteers" was a fancy way of saying "We need bodies for some bullshit."
And the worst part? If they didn't get enough volunteers, they'd just assign people anyway.
The officer paced in front of them like he was giving them a choice. What a dramatic cunt.
"Light recon job," he continued. "Nothing major. Just a scouting run a few klicks outside the city walls. In and out. You'll be back before dark."
Peter and Dan exchanged looks.
Gino just sighed. "How many slots?"
"Four," the officer replied. "First four to step up, you're in."
Rus didn't move.
Not because he was scared. Because he wasn't a goddamn idiot.
No one volunteered for outside-the-walls duty unless they were desperate or suicidal.
Which was why the instructors were already watching, waiting for the moment they hesitated too long.
Sure enough—
"Alright, you, you, you, and you."
The officer's hand landed on Rus, Dan, Gino, and Prokop.
Fucking hell.
***
The transport ride was rough, bouncing along half-repaired roads that barely deserved the name. The walls of the city loomed behind them, massive slabs of reinforced steel and concrete that separated civilization from the wasteland beyond. Honestly, can they even call it a wasteland when things started growing again?
"Alright," the officer briefed them as they rode, "job's simple. We're scouting an abandoned settlement. Some old-world town that's been off the maps since everything went to hell. We're checking if it's salvageable."
Salvageable for what? Human resettlement? Military outpost? He didn't say.
Didn't really matter.
They all knew the real reason for recon missions like this: Find out what killed the last people who lived there.
Seriously, did these fuckers not realized they were supposed to do city jobs?
They arrived at what used to be a town just before sunset.
Nothing but crumbling buildings and overgrown streets. The air was stale, thick with the scent of mildew and decay.
They moved in slow, rifles up, checking corners.
It was quiet. Too quiet.
"This place is fucked," Dan muttered.
"Yeah," Prokop agreed, stepping over a pile of bones. Humans.
Then they heard it.
A scraping noise.
Something moving.
"Contact," Gino whispered, gripping his weapon.
And just like that, they weren't bored anymore.
The sound was subtle, just a faint scraping against concrete, but out here, where the only other noise was the wind, it was like a gunshot to the ears.
Dan turned his head slightly. "That… wasn't the wind, was it?"
No one answered.
They spread out, their boots crunching softly against the cracked pavement. The dead town loomed around them, abandoned buildings leaning like rotting teeth, windows shattered, doors left ajar. Whatever happened here, it happened fast. People left without packing. Without shutting doors. Without burying their dead.
Gino pointed to the pile of bones near his feet. Some still had scraps of clothing clinging to them. One of the skulls had teeth marks.
And not human ones.
"Yeah," Rus muttered. "Real salvageable."
The scraping noise came again.
This time closer.
"Alright, eyes open," the officer said, his voice low. "Standard recon rules apply, do not engage unless necessary. If we see something, we call it in."
Sure. Great.
Except if something sees them first, he doubt they'll get the chance to make a damn call.
Dan nudged him. "Bet you a week's rations, it's a pack of ferals."
Rus wasn't taking that bet.
They moved deeper into the town, checking doorways, peering into what used to be homes. The sun was sinking, throwing long shadows through the streets.
Every step felt wrong.
Like they weren't just walking into danger.
Like they were already being hunted.
A shape flickered at the edge of his vision of something darting behind a doorway. Rus snapped his rifle up, finger brushing the trigger.
Dan saw it too. "Contact, left."
The officer held up a fist. They stopped.
The tension was thick enough to choke on.
A low, guttural clicking noise echoed from inside the building.
Rus stomach turned.
Because that wasn't a sound a human throat could make.
Prokop's breathing hitched. He was closest to the doorway, standing half a foot away from the thing inside.
"Move back," Gino whispered.
Then, in a flash of movement, something stepped into the light.
Not a Goblin. Not an Orc. Something else.
It stood taller than them, hunched forward like it wasn't meant to walk upright. Its skin was grayish-green, stretched tight over its bones. Its fingers were long and tipped with claws. But the worst part?
Its eyes.
Jet black, glistening in the dying light.
It wasn't just looking at them.
It was studying them.
And then it smiled.
Teeth—sharp, jagged, stained dark—flashed in the dim light.
A cold chill ran down his spine.
This thing wasn't just some random monster.
It knew what they were.
It was thinking.
And that was a problem.
For a long moment, no one moved.
Then the officer exhaled. Slowly. Calmly.
"Everyone," he said, voice level. "Lower your weapons."
The thing tilted its head. Amused.
Gino whispered, "We're not seriously gonna—"
"We're not here to pick a fight," the officer interrupted. "Not yet."
Rus hated it, but he was right. This wasn't some feral beast. This thing had reasoning. If they opened fire, they were going to start a fight that they might not win.
The creature clicked its teeth together, like it was laughing at some joke only it understood.
Then, as fast as it appeared—
It was gone.
Slipping back into the darkness like it had never been there at all.
Nobody spoke.
The officer clicked his radio on.
"HQ, this is Recon Team 7. We've got something here. Not a Goblin. Not an Orc. Something else. Sending coordinates now."
HQ was talking, but Rus barely heard them. The words blurred together, lost beneath the sound of his own heartbeat hammering in his ears.
The rest of the crew was the same. Standing there, trying to process what the fuck just happened.
A monster. Not just a monster, a thinking one.
For a minute, they had all felt it — prey.
They weren't used to that.
But as the initial fear wore off, something else replaced it. Clarity. That thing let them go. It underestimated them.
And that?
That was the worst mistake it could make.
Rus don't know what the fuck these creatures think, how they see them, what goes on in those black-pit eyes of theirs.
Maybe it thought they were weak.
Maybe it thought sparing them was an act of mercy.
Maybe it thought they'd run back with tails between their legs and tell the city to leave it alone.
But the City? The City does not hesitate.
They don't negotiate.
They don't fear.
They eradicate.
That thing spared them, but all it really did was sign its own death warrant.
Because now?
They knew where to send the artillery.
The next day, they returned.
Or rather, they returned to what was left.
The artillery unit had done its job thoroughly.
What used to be a town was now just a smoking crater, a wide expanse of blackened rubble and scorched earth. The air was still thick with the stench of burnt flesh, and the ground was hot under our boots.
Nothing survived.
And in the middle of that charred wasteland, half-buried in the ashes, they found it.
The thing's skull.
Its flesh was gone, burned away by the relentless shelling and firebombing. But the skull remained, its jagged teeth grinning up at us like some sick joke.
Dan nudged it with his boot. "Well. Guess it knows now it was bad idea to let us go."
Gino let out a short laugh. "Yeah. Knows that the City doesn't fuck around."
Rus stared at it for a long moment.
The thing had let them go.
And in return, they turned its entire home into dust.