"Man, too bad nothing was in that anomaly thing," Dmitry complained as they hiked through the forest. "This list says we could've gotten a Meat out of it if we're lucky."
Hah. Was he already addicted to its healing?
Konrad rolled his eyes.
"That was the first one we encountered," he noted. "And it was brand new, too. Old man Sidorovich said these had to catch something first, then, you know—"
Grow a pearl like a clam, or whatever his metaphor was.
"Besides," Konrad smirked, "Meat's a rare, mid-grade artifact. We might've gotten a Stone Blood, but if you already dream, dream big and aim for a Soul from the start."
He had run through that list, too, but now that they were on the road, he had to focus.
One wrong step, and his leg could end up on the Moon.
"If I ever find something high-grade, no way in hell I'm selling it," the Captain said, one eye always on his PDA. "Should be no anomalies nearby, though. They only marked a dog's den."
"Right," he nodded. "Those Blind Dog things. I'd rather not find out what they are."
Dmitry grinned.
"They've a whole Wiki on this thing," he claimed, waving that old piece of tech around. "Can look them up for you. Or, you'd rather I've shot everything that moves?"
"Even things that don't," Konrad grunted. "And I hope you've plenty of ammo."
He had a bad feeling already.
They must have walked about a mile, with the Garbage still some time away. But they hadn't seen anyone so far. Sidorovich talked about Stalkers, bandits, wildlife, but—
Nothing. Not even the birds chirped.
And the horrifying thing was that whenever he reached out with his magic for signs of life—
The amount he found almost blinded his senses.
Meanwhile, his actual eyes couldn't see a thing.
"Oh, we reached the crossroads," Dmitry stated the obvious. It was a T-junction, though. "We're taking a right turn here, then we should be at the checkpoint soon."
"Check—"
Something howled behind them, and Konrad never got to finish.
A wolf? A dog? Was it blind?
Only one thing was sure. It wasn't alone.
"Is it me, or they're approaching?" the Captain muttered, slipping the PDA into his pocket and grabbing his rifle with both hands. "Why did they wait until we left their stupid forest?!"
Yeah, why?
Konrad had a hunch, but he'd rather not say.
They were out in the open now, with nowhere to go but forward.
An ambush would have been easier to set up in the woods and would have led to fewer casualties. But they could have found good cover as well.
Here, an enemy could have surrounded them and seen their every move.
That AK might have picked off a few, but—
"Shit," Dmitry breathed, seeing the dogs emerge from the treeline. "Get your Makarov. This is more than I have rounds," he added in a whisper, staring down the three dozen animals.
Whether they were blind or not, Konrad couldn't tell.
The first thing that caught his attention was the complete lack of fur and the burned skin.
The second?
They didn't only come from the treelines, but from behind a shallow hill on the other side, too.
"Pointless," he mumbled. "They've already surrounded us."
Sixty? Seventy? It could have been a hundred, howling from every direction.
"Well, I won't go down without a fight," Dmitry seethed, clutching his rifle even tighter. "I'll get as many of them as I can, and then they might retreat, but—they don't look like they would."
They sure didn't.
They must have been in a lot of pain already.
Whether the radiation or the anomalies took a toll on them, he didn't know.
But they didn't seem like they cared about their well-being, or feared death.
At least, not any more than they feared hunger.
"Preserve your ammo," Konrad whispered. "We're to reach the Garbage, not to make a heroic last stand here. Only shoot them if they're too close."
"You think they'd let us through like that?!" the Captain snapped back.
Almost as if he had already forgotten something important.
"Who said anything about them letting us or not?" the sorcerer returning from another world smirked. "You focus on running, and keep an eye on your PDA, and I'll handle the rest."
The air was dry.
With the static electricity prickling his skin, he didn't even have to think about what spell to use.
No need to summon anything, either. In fact, thanks to the dogs' slow preparation, he didn't have to cut corners this time. Or was it their version of psychological warfare?
It sure got his heart pumping, but it didn't matter.
And he was about to show them why.
"On count to three, run north-east along the road," Konrad said.
No council, no suggestion.
His commander persona, always seeking control, was still alive and well.
"D-dude, I don't want to die with my back to them," Dmitry moaned.
But he was already counting.
"One. Two—"
The dogs, as if feeling the change in the air, chose this moment to attack.
Good, since his range was rather limited.
Konrad even noticed a few different breeds now.
Ones with no burns and actual fur, that seemed to be leading the pack into battle.
Not that it mattered.
"Three." He had every rune in place. All he needed was to channel his mana once he was in the right place. And, of course, to urge that heroic idiot to move. "Run, Dmitry, Run."
The Captain couldn't help but shoot as he went without affecting the dogs' momentum.
Two hundred feet. One-fifty. Eighty.
"Move, move," he yelled, making sure they were in the dead center of the attackers' formation.
"Damn it, kid, we're going to die," Dmitry moaned, not exactly heroic now.
But the first row was finally in range.
And when that idiot stopped to fire at them, Konrad decided he had had enough.
Everything was in the right place, but he had to get that big metal object—his rifle—out of the way. And since the Hero of Kyiv didn't seem to listen, he did it the old-fashioned way.
Turn. Punch. Tackle.
And down he went.
"Sorry, pal," he muttered. "Now, watch."
And as he cast the end seal, all the pent-up static electricity would bend to his will.
The good thing about lightning was that he didn't have to aim it.
It would find a target by itself—and keep going as long as there was something to hit.
Here, it was almost harder not to hit something.
The result was almost instantaneous. The discharge self-released in a perfect circle, rather than in one, well-defined bolt. Those lead dogs, or whatever they were, had no chance to recalculate.
They were all gone within a second, leaving nothing but smoking corpses behind.
A massacre he would have avoided if he could, but these animals didn't seem to be in the mood to negotiate. Hackles raised even in death, at least they didn't have to suffer any longer.
And by the time Dmitry realized what had happened, he dispatched the last strays as well.
It showed how little they cared about safety when they kept attacking after his first strike.
"Damn it, this is like in that dungeon," Konrad noted, dusting himself off before pulling the Captain up. "Mindless monsters only designed to attack and attack, rather than to survive."
He could only hope the humans in the Zone were at least a little better.