The two of them are out hunting monsters and looking for plausible candidates for the station’s security team.

Gottlieb turns, wandering down the corridor. Small, pattering steps walk after him as they make the rounds through the station. Although, at this point, it’s getting hard to tell that he’s doing that, given that the corridors they’re wandering through are starting to look more and more like exotic ecosystems than metal tubing lined with electrical wiring, plastic, and some metal foil.

“Pretty neat,” says Grunheide, looking around the hallway. It’s still perfectly constrained within the confines of the station, but the tube-like corridor has greenery growing out of its walls on all sides, including the ceiling. There isn’t a single piece of metal left to see inside of the tube. There are only blades of grass, flowers, and the odd cable jutting this way and that way, keeping unknown electrical components powered up to fulfill their dubiously useful tasks.

Gottlieb turns his head, looking at a mushroom that grows out of the wall. He lifts a finger, pokes it, and it shoots a cloud of spores out in all directions. He lets out a hacking cough, waving his hand through the air and walking onward.

“Yeah, it’s a pretty neat disaster,” says the man. “The station getting a rec-room is fine and all, Grun. But this could be a real problem.” He shakes his head. “The whole place is a delicate, fragile construction. Wild influences like this aren’t meant to be happening.” He gently nudges a thick power cord with his boot. “One wrong growth, one wrong water-pipe flowing into some conduit, and the whole thing could fry.”

The station, in its own way, is a fragile ecosystem that has now been intruded upon by unexpected forces. The consequences of this are still unknown.

The fact of the irony of this situation, being a reflection of his own workings into the development of the planet below, is not lost on him.

Yet he can’t help but figure that, unlike with his intervention, whatever this force is here, is not a guided development, like a pen stroke led by a dutiful father, writing a list of chores and goals. Rather, it is simply the innate, natural chaos of the universe.

Probably.

----------------------------------------

Gottlieb nods.

Grunheide pulls the trigger. A flash of light fills the air for only an instant. A gunshot rings out, echoing down the oddly damp halls of the station as a body flops over, the fresh hole in its head leaking fluids.

The man looks down at the zombie, which was once some kind of elf, and shakes his head. The regular monsters of this world he can deal with, the goblins, harpies and the like. But zombies just hit a little close to home for him, and he can’t say that he’s a big fan. Besides, he isn’t sure if zombies in this world ‘work’ like they did in the old one. If a space zombie bites him, does he become infected and become a zombie too? Or is there some sort of process related to the system that governs this world, or is there perhaps simply nothing to worry about at all apart from a bruise? It’s impossible to say, and he isn’t going to test it out.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Maybe there’s a book in the library.

If he’s going to be a governing force in this world, something that people pray to on the surface of the world — a god — it only makes sense for him to study more about the monsters that roam the surface.

“What do you think?” he asks, looking around the new room in the station, which, for some reason, resembles a stone cavern filled with the undead.

“No… unless you want vampires again,” she says.

Gottlieb shakes his head, continuing to walk. “No. Once was enough. They’re too high-brow for me, honestly,” he says, tapping his head. “Don’t like mind-games.” Gottlieb pulls on a rock, tugging it loose. “For security-types, I think I’d rather have something with more muscle than brains.” Grunheide looks at him. Gottlieb looks back at her, narrowing his eyes, and she quickly looks away.

----------------------------------------

The box of soap giggles.

Gottlieb tilts his head, looking at the cardboard box, sitting on the ground.

He turns to the side, looking at another cardboard box. It has a label on its side, listing its contents as ‘Canned Goods’. Oddly enough, it also starts giggling. Obviously, this is very unusual behavior for a cardboard box.

He lifts a hand, reaching for one of their lids.

The box continues to giggle more intensely than before.

Gottlieb lowers his hand again, and the giggling quiets.

He lifts his hand up toward the box. The giggling intensifies.

He lowers his hand again.

Gottlieb lifts his hand again. Grunheide grabs it, shaking her head. The two of them turn to look at the box, the lid of which opens. Inside, a small, beady eye on a stalk stares out towards them.

Seeing them watch, the lid slams shut, and the box, flustered, shuffles off and vanishes into the darkness.

“Mimics are shy,” explains Gruneheide. “Good way to lose a finger though.”

“Ah…” says Gottlieb.

----------------------------------------

A serpent hisses, the flicking of its tongue filling the air. Gottlieb looks at the creature, which turns its head to look at him. A pair of flailing, froggy legs sticks out of its mouth, still kicking. The two of them look at each other. It swallows, and the frog vanishes. Another two heads turn to look his way, and then one more rises out of the swamp-water of the murky pond.

Gottlieb looks around the area nearby, staring at the grass on the side of the water. It’s filled with small bones, belonging to all manner of monsters that didn’t make the cut. Grunheide steps behind him, readying the rifle.

Half a dozen naga, creatures that are half-snake and half-person, carefully study them. He can only assume that they do so in preparation of a desire to eat the two of them. They seem like highly ambitious killing machines. He could use something like that. Plus, since they’re only humans at the top half, they’d save on materials for uniforms. It’s a very economical decision.

“You guys want a job?” asks Gottlieb.

The head naga, an aqua scaled serpentine person with flushes of red scales, lunges towards him with long fangs bared, dripping with venom.

A gunshot rings out.

The rubber bullet, shot by Grunheide, hits straight into the attacking naga’s chest. It flops over.

In an instant, as it hits the ground, the others descend over it and tear it into the water, where red scales and red water rise to the surface of the water.

Weakness is apparently harshly punished in naga society.

That’s good. Strong work ethics will get them far. Plus, they eat monsters, so that means there won’t be a ton of rotting bodies all over the station from the creatures they hunt and kill.

A new naga takes the lead of the pack, the others hissing as it approaches the front of the line.

“Want a job?” repeats Gottlieb, raising an eyebrow. Grunheide lifts the gun, aiming it at the ready.

The entity hisses, looking at the man. “What do you desire, from the clan of hard scales?” it asks, its voice hissing.

Gottlieb nods. This is good. This is productive.

— A cleanly picked skull floats up to the surface of the water.

“I need you to go hunting,” explains the man. Many pleased hisses come from the water.