As much as Jarek liked these hideous creatures, he still had to prevent any disaster they might cause. After his little fight with the former pack leader, the idea of killing (at least in self-defense) no longer bothered him at all. And at the very least, he would make it as quick and painless as possible to spare them unnecessary suffering. Unlike what the rest of the dogs, including Martin himself, would do.
Something was off.
As soon as he hit the ground, Martin's highly developed sense of smell picked up a different scent from these goblins. It stung the nose, reminding him of rotten eggs mixed with an unfamiliar fragrance Jarek couldn't quite describe.
Intrigued, Jarek shifted his characteristic blue hue to the snowy white of his surroundings and crept closer until he could see the goblins face-to-face.
They were strangely clean. The tattered loincloths or bundles of leaves tied with rope around their waists had been replaced by perfectly tailored, immaculate black uniforms.
The shirts had four front pockets, each with a flap and button closure, and reinforced elbows. Overall, they looked like… soldiers from his world. They even held miniature rifles that, in any other context, might have made them look almost cute.
Jarek's depressed brain shut down for a moment. No thoughts crossed his mind.
—W-why are there firearms here? — he asked himself, shaken.
An object that seemed completely out of place in the hands holding it, the fusion of fantastical and ballistic concepts created a chaotic disturbance in Jarek's heart, filling him with countless questions.
He didn't even have time to process the stark contrast of the situation when several powerful shots pierced the heads of the females strolling calmly nearby. A barrage of shimmering, colorful bullets tore through the walls of nearby houses, claiming more than one victim in mere seconds.
Martin himself was hit multiple times, but it was nothing he couldn't regenerate immediately after taking the damage. Still, it sent Jarek's alertness to its maximum.
With a leap, he moved out of the goblins' range and hid in the safest house, ignoring Martin's fervent hatred and bloodlust.
Those rifles didn't seem particularly powerful. In fact, they felt almost outdated. If he had to compare them to weapons from his world, he'd say they resembled machine guns used in World War II, maybe slightly more modern.
And yet, they had managed to penetrate Jarek's thick symbiotic armor in a single shot.
—¿¡What kind of power is that?! — he couldn't help but shout, recognizing the danger those weapons posed to his host. One shot to the head, and it would be game over.
The 21 goblins spread out across the village with perfect coordination, showing they had undergone rigorous training. The skulls of the few dogs that approached were pierced in an instant, making a mockery of their impressive numbers and strength, the only advantages they had over the goblins.
So many questions raced through Jarek's mind at that moment, and there was only one way to answer them all.
"Capture one and eliminate the rest"
he thought, knowing he just had to avoid the gunfire and take them out one by one. No matter how many weapons they had, they were still incredibly fragile against the combined strength of Martin and his habilities. He would uncover everything about them once he read the mind of the lucky (or unlucky) one who survived in the end.
It took only a slight push to reach the front of five goblins. Only one noticed how a mountain of snow suddenly appeared before them. In that moment, a massive row of teeth decapitated it with a single bite.
A surge of phenylethylamine coursed through Jarek. Devouring brains still felt disgusting to him, but he got used to suppressing his disgust after months of consuming animal brains. His new dependence on the chemical was one of the drawbacks he hated most, but it was all for survival.
With tentacles formed from his back, he impaled the four goblins who had barely realized what was happening. None had the chance to scream or defend themselves with their weapons.
He had to be honest. Jarek knew he wanted one of those rifles the moment he saw them. He formed a small hand from his shoulder and, with the care one would use to handle a fragile toy that might break under the slightest pressure, tried to fire at a nearby group of goblins.
— W-what? It doesn't even have a trigger!
The space where the trigger should have been was completely empty. Jarek couldn't see a button or any other mechanism that would activate the terrifying shots.
He even shook it, thinking that might make it work, but of course, nothing happened.
Could it only work for a specific user, or did it require some unknown, gruesome magical spell?
Jarek cursed his luck, dropping the weapon onto the snow.
Now he was even more motivated to uncover the secrets hidden in those tiny brains.
The next group, this time made up of eight members, was busy mowing down the pack, whose numbers were dwindling at an alarming rate. The goblins didn't seem to need to reload their weapons, the uninterrupted gunfire was proof of that.
Martin's fury and sadness were highly contagious. However, Jarek couldn't afford to give in to them and attack recklessly without any protection or plan to keep them from becoming a walking colander.
Jarek swung from tree to tree until he was directly above the second group. Four of them noticed the massive shadow looming over them from above and didn't hesitate, firing simultaneously.
Jarek had already swung to the tree behind them. Some bullets grazed him, but the goblins weren't fast enough to track his movement and ended up skewered before Jarek even touched the ground.
The other four goblins heard the sound of their companions' flesh being pierced and, without wasting a second, turned and unleashed a hail of bullets in his direction. With agility, Jarek hurled two of the goblins still impaled on his tentacles while running, using them as a shield. Unfortunately, the bullets quickly reduced them to shreds.
Still, the distraction proved useful. Jarek managed to close the distance while the goblins were preoccupied with the corpses of their former comrades.
With a swift movement, Jarek dodged the remaining bullets and launched a blade formed from his symbiotic mass directly at one goblin's throat, silencing its scream before it could alert the others. Seizing the moment, he pounced on the next one, using his claws to pierce its heart. Surprise and panic overtook the two remaining goblins.
Their unsettling coldness and robotic movements vanished in a matter of seconds.
"It's almost comical…"
Jarek crushed them with a powerful blow.
—I guess there really was no reason to worry.
He sighed in relief as the tension in his heart faded. These easy victories wouldn't make him overconfident, things could turn ugly if he gave them even a single chance. Aware of this, he rushed toward the final group of seven goblins.
—One… four… six…
Jarek lazily counted his last victims, leaving only one alive. Of course, its legs and arms were broken to avoid any unwanted surprises.
—Easy, little buddy. I'll be quick — Jarek said gently to the terrified goblin, who wouldn't stop screaming. He knew there was no way the little creature understood what he'd just said, but he said it anyway, trying to ease his own guilt for putting it through so much pain, especially after claiming he wouldn't cause unnecessary suffering.
The scene before him was rather grim.
The village was now undeniably destroyed. The sturdiest houses were reduced to walls riddled with holes, on the verge of collapse. He didn't even want to see the state of the places that were already in terrible condition before he arrived.
Out of 200 pack members, he could now see no more than 40, maybe 50.
A destruction no one would believe was caused by tiny beings barely reaching the navel of an average teenager.
Poor Martin was weeping inside the robust symbiotic armor that covered him, and part of his sadness had infected Jarek, but…
To say Jarek didn't care was an understatement. In fact, he was now in an excellent mood. He had more important things to do than feel the slightest bit of regret for not acting faster to prevent the deaths of so many of his subordinates.
With how promiscuous these wretched creatures were, it wouldn't take long for their numbers to return to normal or even surpass their original count.
A true plague.
As Jarek's giant hand reached toward the goblin, it suddenly froze. The goblin's annoying screams weren't the reason.
it was a faint buzzing mixed with static coming from the armored vest the creature was wearing.
It was impossible for his hearing to have been damaged by prolonged exposure to gunfire, so the source of that irritating buzzing had to be something else. Anxiety flooded Jarek once more. If firearms existed, then something like a radio must exist too.
He obviously didn't expect there to be no consequences for taking out a small battalion.
It might sound ridiculous, but if there was a nation of civilized goblins with advanced technology out there, they wouldn't find it amusing that members of their army were annihilated before even completing the mission they were sent for.
But he hadn't expected his little skirmish to be discovered so quickly by something as simple as a missed call from "headquarters."
In the past, he had managed to enter the mind of a cooperative test subject who had little choice but to accept his fate and comply willingly. At this point, Jarek understood the strange language the goblins used fairly well. Although he doesn't like to speak in that language.
He ripped open the front of the armored vest, expecting to find some kind of microphone or earpiece to hear the orders from whoever was on the other end of the line.
Jarek's confident, smug smile vanished the moment he saw a series of cylinders connected to various cables wrapped around the goblin's waist, glowing red-hot with intensity. He felt the menacing heat radiating from them, a heat he hadn't noticed when the vest was still intact.
—Oh...
A bluish glow erupted from the goblin's belt, forming a mesh of translucent scales that enveloped its entire body, except for the cylinders. Suddenly, a blinding flash dazzled Jarek before a spectacle of red lights exploded right in front of him.
Bursts of rapid sparks shot out from the cylinders, exploding and igniting on contact with their target.
Jarek grunted, rocked by the explosions that pushed him back. Heat and smoke swirled around him, and the goblins he had killed exploded in the same way, though without that strange shield.
In an instant, a large part of the village was engulfed in a blazing red tide. Buildings, corpses, the few dogs still alive.
Everything was devoured by the flames in a matter of seconds.
By pure reflex, Jarek retreated into Martin as soon as the burning began. Unfortunately, that didn't save him from sustaining devastating damage.
His mind went blank as he felt his cells burning. All the experience he had gained in controlling his new abilities vanished.
Pain.
Pain.
Pain.
It was all he could feel.
Martin took the worst of it. Without the aid of super-regeneration, he couldn't withstand the extreme temperatures and ultimately succumbed. The surrounding piles of snow melted as the houses finally crumbled to pieces.
And as quickly as it came, the fire vanished without a trace before it could spread to the trees that had been spared from the infernal sparks.
After a few minutes, the unbearable pain finally subsided, allowing Jarek to react. The sight of the horrific aftermath left by the fire was devastating. The smell of charred flesh was so intense it could make anyone who caught a whiff feel sick.
But that was unimportant.
Martin's heart had stopped beating. Immediately, Jarek tried to heal him as anxiety and fear surged uncontrollably within him. No matter how hard he tried to fix it, the damage was too extensive for any effort to be truly effective. The only things spared by the flames were his organs, which were shutting down one by one.
The rest was just a cracked piece of charcoal.
There was nothing he could do to save him. Jarek emerged from the corpse with utmost care, afraid that the slightest touch might break it.
His heart felt empty. Though he had only known Martin for a few months, he had become someone important. Seeing him like this reminded Jarek of when his first pet had died from poisoning.
He gently stroked the nose of his first host. He thought that if he hadn't been so arrogant and had moved away from the goblin the moment he heard the buzzing, this wouldn't have happened. He cursed himself for being so naive, feeling like a child who knew nothing of the world and thought himself invincible.
At that moment, the strange shield that had saved the goblin from being incinerated flickered before dissolving into bluish smoke.
The goblin coughed up blood and took a deep breath, as if it hadn't been able to breathe while encased.
…
If Jarek were to scream that he hated it, it would be a lie. He didn't know the reasons why they were attacked, but given all the damage the pack caused in the surrounding area, it was… pretty obvious why the government of these dwarves decided to eliminate them before they became a real environmental problem.
He was still angry, very angry. But he wouldn't take it out on the first thing he saw, much less on a mere worker who was just following orders.
In fact, the original plan was still in motion.
With the goblin's desperate screams in the background, Jarek slithered toward it.