The hut stood in an unsavory manner. It was certainly made from the same materials of the town's structures, but it didn't suffer its destruction. The hut was completely clean from the outside, the windows were entirely covered up by pull-up curtains — shielding the fact of light ever existing inside. If the sky was clear, one could view this hut as a high-tech trailer and nothing more. It definitely smelled of corporate involvement, perhaps it belonged to an Outland worker who transported goods from the imperial city, the technorunner thought. The Outlands, after all, had very rare and special materials hidden within that cities needed. But even so, to sustain almost no damage when it was so close to the destruction of an entire village, something was undoubtedly awry with this hut.

The technorunner rapped twice on the hut's metal door, calling into question if life was currently inhabiting this place or not, but no response came. He pulled his vizor once again to scan for any human heat signature, nothing. He closed his eyes to sense if there was movement within its walls, nothing yet again.

A small lock pad rested beside the main door, the technorunner figured the door would be fingerprint locked, but to his surprise, it was pin locked. Four numbers, four mumbo jumbos to open this tin can that stood as if it was Pandora's Box. The technorunner fastened back his saving grace, the vizor, and converted to a special vision. Fingerprints trailed on four specific numbers, but in which order, trial and error was the only way to find out. Hoping for no lockdown mode after many attempts, the technorunner proceeded to push all those four numbers in various orders until he could get the right one. Then at one time, a click shattered the silenced wind, and the door slid up without warning.

Inside was nothing but a tiny cabinet, probably the size of an elevator cabinet, that could presumably fit only one person, preceded by a door at the other side. The technorunner stepped through at a leisurely pace, maintaining one foot ahead of the other. The front door suddenly slammed shut. Wind, from both the floor and the ceiling, rushed at an unstoppable rate that the technorunner felt like floating at any time. It stopped. Am I gonna get washed now? The technorunner jokingly thought. Another clicking sound emitted from the second door, as a green light lit directly above it. The technorunner pushed the door slightly open and entered the hut.

It was mundane, nothing grand. On the right side after the entrance was the bathroom. Moving forward, the technorunner saw the rest of the hut. To the right, a sink, a stove, a small fridge, a coffee table for one, and the only window that shed light into the hut. To the left, a small bed, and a ragged couch. The entire place was certainly made just for eating and sleeping, and enough to fit one man. There were no small containers or boxes anywhere, so whoever lived there, they weren't porters.

But that wasn't all of it, at least that was what the technorunner thought. There must have been a reason for why this hut was still standing. It wasn't the kind of hut that could be printed instantly or carried around. It was definitely man-made.

The technorunner roamed inside the hut, scouring every nook and cranny, looking for something that he himself did not know what it was. But there was something, he could feel it.

Odd enough, the so-called fridge was out of power, and all the food inside had become rotten for at least a couple of weeks now. This was intentional. Someone was trying to give the implication that the hut hadn't been touched for weeks, meaning that it had no inhabitants. That plan would have worked had the dust not been cleared, and the hut out of power. Huts like these required at least a power recharge every week, even more so if there were appliances that consumed power inside it, which was obviously the case.

Even so, this wasn't the only oddity in the place. It reeked of a horrendous smell, worse than the spoiled food in the fridge. A mix of odor and possibly spoiled meat, further implicating the fact that nobody has lived in this place for over weeks. But the technorunner wasn't fooled, not yet. He was certain that the smell wasn't there before, if so, he would have smelled it the moment he had entered the hut — that was how bad the smell was. All of these strange circumstances were occurring at a suspicious pace.

The technorunner traced the smell back to its source. To no one's surprise, the smell came from the stove, the oven specifically. It was covered in dirt to the extent that the technorunner could not determine what was inside unless he opened it.

And so he did.

What lied inside was nothing short of incomprehensible. There was the facade of a normal oven chamber at first glance, just plates, and a casserole dish. Upon closer inspection, however, one would begin to question the contents inside. Plates were certainly not to be placed within an oven, and empty plates to add that. The giant dish, as opposed to the two empty plates, had something of its own to say.

The technorunner pulled out of the oven, and placed it on the floor, right in front of the open oven. He pulled the lid, and as expected with the smell, what the dish contained wasn't something edible at all. There was no right description of the dish's contents. It was a dark mud, perhaps a soup in the eyes of who made it, yet, there were bones, and little chunks of meat scattered throughout the dish. This entire dish was capable enough of having flies roam above it the moment it would be placed outside — not that there were any flies in the Outlands anymore.

If anything was right with the technorunner's deduction, this clustered excuse of a dish was nothing but the re—

'Can I help ya?' a rough and raspy voice spoke out loud without warning, a voice that could be easily mistaken for the throaty voice of a heavy smoker. It was enough to disturb the technorunner's thoughts and send him back in surprise.

In two shakes of a lamb's tail, the technorunner kicked the dish away and stood up to face whoever stood behind him.

The man in question was of equivocal size. He seemed like he hadn't seen the light of day in over a month — matching with the hut's situation. But overall, his appearance did not seem that much of being hostile, just suspicious. The technorunner couldn't lay down his thoughts just because the man was average, he needed to be on his toes. In addition to that, he needed an excuse for why he was in the hut. It was most likely that the man was the owner of the hut, and any minute now, he would be accusing the technorunner of trespassing. Yet, it also seemed unlikely, considering the state the hut and its surroundings were in.

The technorunner tried his best to hide suspicion and pretended to be oblivious to even the true fact of what happened at the village, 'I… I saw the town out there, so I thought…,' he spoke, the first time he had in a very long time, yet his voice was still there, hidden beneath the almost robotic resonance of his technical mask. He had honestly expected himself to let out a dying breath instead of words, loneliness can be fatal sometimes.

'Oh my, a republican?!' the man interrupted.

It seemed that he had caught on to the technorunner's accent, a carefree and often informal accent, which differed from those who spoke in these lands. The only people who spoke with that tongue were those from the southern continent, where the only republic in this world existed. The technorunner was indeed from that continent, but he had no association whatsoever with the republic — they had a sour reputation in these lands.

'I reckon yer here for me junk, eh,' the man said.

The technorunner stood confused.

'Yer one of them scrap collectors,' the man stated, 'I can see it on yer badge.'

Yes, the technorunner was a junk and scrap collector, that was the sole purpose all other technorunners like him were known by. A badge on the shoulder wasn't something to symbolize their pride in being junk collectors, instead, it was a way to tell others to bring their unused appliances to the technorunners without asking. However, the technorunner had stopped collecting unnecessary scrap a long time ago and embarked on his own to whatever could keep him surviving.

Something seemed odd to the technorunner. The man was friendly, too friendly for the bare eyes. Any natural human being would have burst in anger had they seen the technorunner breaking into their own household — if this could even be called a household. This whole place was on the verge of collapse, yet the man seemed not to be bothered by it in the slightest, or even notice it. His entire demeanor seemed almost robotic. He never stated who he was, and he never asked who the technorunner was exactly. His actions would have been appropriate had this been an open shop that the technorunner just happened to run into, and he was the manager, but that was not the case.

'But don't ya look a tad young for this kind of job?' the man laughed.

Though, the technorunner felt anything but levity. He needed to keep track of what he would say, who knows what kind of person that man would be? He needed to refrain from ticking him off, and so he remained silent, and the man didn't seem bothered by it in the slightest, deepening the technorunner's skepticism.

The man ignored the mess the technorunner had clearly made in the "kitchen," and went ahead to make his bed, which was already well-made, despite the grimness of the place.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

All the red flags giving off at this point, the technorunner reached for his belt, for one of his weapons, only his hand was covered by his long coat, so there was no way the man would know what the technorunner was doing. But the technorunner wasn't going to fire right away, he just needed to rest his hand beside it, to be prepared for any surprises.

'Ya hungry?' the man asked, still dismissing the fact that the technorunner was awfully silent, he was either truly dead from the neck up or was just masquerading as so, 'I've got plenty in the fridge.'

No thanks, the technorunner thought, but he didn't answer. He had already seen enough to know full well that there was nothing even close to being edible in this place. Perhaps this man wasn't a human. But even tin cans didn't live on scrap and jolts, they ate like normal human beings.

'Well, yer not the gibbering fella,' the man said before he walked up to the technorunner and stood facing him. The technorunner hadn't noticed this before, but the man seemed a bit taller than him, and with his oversized weight, he was practically a giant. Another detail was the fact that the man had one lazy eye, and his face seemed like he had just run an entire marathon, swelling up for absolutely no reason.

Silence began to fill the room, as the two men stared at each other for a few seconds. But that was all it took for the technorunner to recognize the man. That man wasn't some washed up transporter, a drunken menial, or an emissary for the dark forces that roamed the surrounding land. Hell, his maniacal appearance was normal once one would understand what lied in his twisted head. This man was none other than the Outland Ghoul, at least, from the descriptions many have recounted in the tavern tales.

'I'll cook me a meal anyway,' the man said, 'If ya want, just say.'

But the technorunner was in no mood for food at all, especially his food. If the technorunner's thoughts were right, with the hut's uninhabitable state, the food he had seen, and the man's delirious appearance, then this was without a doubt, the demon in the shell of a man. However, the technorunner wasn't a psychic. For all he knew, the tales he had heard might have been a sham, and his thoughts were all just a figment of his imagination.

There was a way; a way to bring all of these doubts into light… to bring the beast out of his cave. It was a huge gamble, a gamble that the technorunner felt the need to take.

No more doubts. No more worries. Just be yourself. There is nothing to fear. The technorunner thought to himself, there was no turning back.

'You know…,' the technorunner finally spoke. He turned around to face the man, who was struggling with his stove, 'I've heard stories about this land. Most of what I heard was whispered in bars at night like they were myths,' the technorunner regained his confidence, grabbed a chair near the coffee table, and sat down.

'Finally speaking, eh,' the man lit the stove, after struggling with the lighter, and placed a cooker on top, as the rustling sound of the food oil began to fill the room, 'Yes, I've heard of them stories. What land does not have stories? But that is all they are, just stories.'

Doubt was in its rightful place. The man was already trying to dismiss what the technorunner had been planning to say before he even said anything relevant to it.

'They're all just stories,' the technorunner sniggered, 'But this one is a little special. And I think you'll find it interesting,' he picked up his feet and stood against the wall, preparing himself for what would come next, 'It's about a man who was banished from the imperial city.'

The moment the technorunner had mentioned the imperial city, the man began to slow down his tracks.

'A man who lost himself to the Outlands,' the technorunner continued, 'And gave in to his unspeakable desires. Rejecting his humanity, turning himself to a ghoul. A ghoul who fed on the meat of humans, and the scraps left by androids. Nobody ever faced him... and only a lucky few survived. Because by the time he was infamous enough for stories, he had already become a truly unstoppable monster.'

The man moved away from the stove, giving the technorunner his back, and never spoke a word back.

'Quite the story, ain't it?'

No response came from the man. Aside from the noise of the oil in the cooker, it was quiet between both men.

'Why so quiet? I thought the host was supposed to indulge his guest with some small talk… some games maybe… or even a couple of life stories,' the technorunner was practically digging his own grave with his smug attitude at that point, and he knew that very well. He wanted to anger the man, to let the monster take over, and prove that his deduction was right. Even though he wanted to believe that nothing was wrong, that the man was just a man.

The man had lost the (almost) humane expression plastered onto his face, as it began to transform dramatically into that of rage and hunger. Sweat filled him as if he stood alone in a boiler room. It could have been that the man had his heart in his mouth. But he was no man. And he had no heart. Not anymore.

In the case of the technorunner, he still had that slight nervousness. With all the weapons he carried, and all the training he had received for self-defense, he still had little experience. All experience gave him was how to survive and fight mindless monsters and machines. No chance ever arose for him to be engaged in a life-threatening fight with an actual thinking human (if he can even be called human), which this was shaping up to be.

The tension grew deeper, as the noise grew louder and louder until it was the only sound that can be heard.

'I've…,' the man spoke, his voice rougher and deeper than ever, 'I've heard stories of your kind,' a wide eerie smile was drawn on his face, 'They don't last long!'

Like a shot, the man burst rushing at the technorunner at an unbelievable pace, despite his weight. Instead of grabbing for his magnum revolver strapped in his belt, the technorunner made an on-spot decision and reached for the shotgun on his back. But that only slowed him down, giving a chance for the man to tackle him to the ground. Only that bull attack didn't pin the technorunner to the floor, it sent him flying to the wall. And with the man's immense pressure against him, the two men crashed into the wall, and out of the hut in a matter of seconds.

Both men landed in the small snow garden overlooking the hut.

The shotgun flew out of the technorunner's hand, leaving him unarmed. And the man didn't give the technorunner a chance for recovery. He had the technorunner restrained on the ground, right underneath him. He screamed out loud like a monster howling at its prey, before landing heavy punches onto the technorunner. The technorunner tried to reach out for the shotgun only a few inches away from him, but the constant blows on his face were too much. The man punched him with heavy force as if he carried a rock in his hand. It was due to his mechanical hands that he had likely upgraded to from an android that fell victim to him.

Despite this rage, the man had great fear, it could be seen in his eyes. What can a man like him be so afraid of? That he had been found out? That his life was being threatened? Both didn't seem likely, the technorunner stood almost no chance against that man with his colossal power. So the odds were in the man's favor, he would kill the technorunner, and everything would return back to normal — in his sense. Yet, there was something else behind all this facade, something that the man didn't possess, but greatly feared for.

With not much time to think, the technorunner remembered that he had other weapons on him that the man was yet to deprive him of. And so, he abandoned the idea of grabbing his shotgun and tried to reach for the revolver strapped to his belt. It was hidden well beneath the coat and blended nicely with his armor, almost impossible for the man to notice him grab for it with all this commotion. Had he resorted to using it earlier, perhaps he would have landed a shot on the man, and hadn't got himself flying out of the hut as if he had been attacked by a bull.

He reached for his golden magnum, and — with swift movement — instantly shot the man in the side of his torso.

The man cried in agony, as he faltered back, away from the technorunner. The technorunner immediately picked up his feet, grabbed his shotgun, and aimed it at the man, with no intention of shooting him just yet. The man didn't seem to be in any fatal condition, and with his reinforced skin armor that he collected from his victims, it was unlikely for him to stop.

'Look!' the technorunner cautioned. He raised his shotgun up in the air as if he was surrendering himself, but he was merely offering peace, 'Neither of us have to do this.'

'Oh… should've said that before shooting me,' the man spoke with a sarcastic, yet threatening tone.

'You don't have to kill me. I don't have to kill you,' the technorunner said, 'So let's find the middle ground.'

The man sneered, 'I prefer the high one!'

He initiated his plunging attack once more with a howl, storming towards the technorunner at a much slower pace than before, giving the technorunner a chance to move away — at least now it was from a greater distance, and he expected it.

'Yer 'ere to kill me, I know it,' the man said.

'Woah, I'm not here to kill anybody. I'm just an ordinary technorunner.'

'Yeah? What kinda technorunner carries a posy of weapons like they ready for an all-out-war? Last I remember, we were in an era of peace.'

'Last I remember, Eldria was facing imperialism, so no, we're not in an era of peace,' the technorunner chortled while making fun of the man with mimicking gestures, 'And I carry all these weapons to survive! Not to kill!'

'Bullshit!' The man didn't believe that the technorunner was trying to fend for himself, he believed he was a part of a greater scheme, 'Yer with them hunters…,' he pointed at the technorunner and then at the rest of the empty white desert, 'Them Outland Mercs. You kill me, they slip you a coin.'

'Listen, buddy! I might be empty-pocketed, but I'm not that desperate for coin.' Hunting was usual, especially in the Outlands. Hunters would swarm it for the rare monsters it would inhabit, either for themselves to sell them greatly or for a job they would receive, that also pays great coin. And in that expertise, enter the Outland Mercs, they are bounty hunters, or mercenaries, first and foremost, all they do is for any kind of coin or profit. With them, however, there was no difference between a monster target or a human target, they were all the same. A human target was even more profitable for them.

From the looks of it, a great bounty was set on the man's head. That was why he suspected the technorunner to be part of the hunters guild. The technorunner had no intention of killing him though. Him knowing his story was a mere coincidence. Of course, the man was someone who deserved to be punished and killed for all the heinous crimes he committed. But the technorunner was not one to judge. Perhaps he believed in the existence of justice, or he simply did not want to go through the trouble of killing, who knows?

'Either way, you know too much, fuckwad!' The man yelled.

The technorunner sighed, 'Now, you're just being rude.'

Just before the man can move on with another one of his predictable attacks, a giant armored truck, the size of two bulldozers, pulled up to the center of the snow garden — separating the technorunner and the man — and crashed into the hut like an arrow from a bow, demolishing it completely.

What in the hell? The technorunner thought as he picked himself up.

As for the man, he knew exactly to whom the truck belonged to. He wasn't at all angered by the fact that his hut was reduced to ruin. Panic and fear ruled over him at that moment. The technorunner was nothing for him, for he predicted that he would be an easy kill. But what the truck housed was something else. It was the end of the line for the man. What he knew, and what he was worth, was enough to drag the attention of not only mercenaries or average hunters but the Broken Jackals guild themselves — the most dangerous hunters' guild to ever exist in this land.