Chương 6: The Dustchuck Deal

"Current threat unresolved." Jack froze with one hand still on the lock.

"What do you mean unresolved? They left." The system replied calmly, "The immediate attack has stopped. The source of the threat has not been resolved." Jack stared at the glass door. Outside, the three figures had already vanished into the dark. For a moment, he wanted to argue, but then he remembered what the system had said. These creatures lived in groups.

"…Right," Jack muttered.

"Of course it's not that easy." Jack locked the door, then sank onto a nearby box, his hands still shaking. He set the gun beside him, grabbed a bottle of water, and drank half of it in one go. After a while, Jack finally said, "LOSS, what the hell were those things?"

"Unknown," the system replied.

"For now, I can only identify them as mutated burrowing mammals. Subtype: arid wasteland variant."

"So basically, you don't know."

"Current data is insufficient."

"Yeah. That's what I said." Jack rubbed his face and gave up.

"Forget it." Jack thought back to the three oversized groundhogs from last night. Gray, dusty, round, and way too good at digging. After a moment, he let out a tired laugh.

"This whole damn place is covered in dust and sand."

"Groundhog doesn't really fit anymore. Might as well call them Dustchucks." The system: "…" Jack nodded to himself.

"Done. They're Dustchucks now. Jesus himself couldn't talk me out of it." By then, Jack was running on fumes. He went upstairs, collapsed into bed, and was asleep almost immediately. The next morning, the system's voice woke him up.

"Human, the mutated mammals from last night are back." Jack rolled over, still half asleep.

"Who's back…"

"Your old friends. The Dustchucks."

"Mm." A second later, Jack's eyes opened.

"Wait. What?" If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

"There are more than three this time." That woke him up. Jack threw on his clothes and hurried downstairs, nearly tripping over his own shoes. Halfway down the stairs, Jack stopped. Outside the convenience store, gray, round, oversized creatures crouched across the reddish-brown sand, all facing the glass door. Jack counted under his breath—one, two, three—then stopped halfway through. There had to be more than twenty. Last night, three of them had already been enough trouble. Now there was a whole group.

Then the system added, "Mission countdown: eighteen hours and twenty-three minutes." Jack nearly choked.

"Okay, so this is what unresolved means?"

"Correct." He stared at the Dustchucks outside and let out a short, humorless laugh.

"That's not backup. That's a family reunion with claws." When the system did not respond, Jack waited another second before asking, "And the mission reward stays the same?"

"Mission countdown: eighteen hours and twenty-two minutes." Jack: "…" That was apparently the only answer he was getting. Arguing with the system was useless. The group of Dustchucks outside was the real problem. Jack took a deep breath, turned around, and hurried to the shelves. He grabbed a pile of crackers and bread, then went to the glass door with the food in his arms. He cracked the door open, and hot air hit him in the face. Jack hissed and shoved it shut again.

There was no way he could leave it open for long. Just like last night, he could only crack the door enough to toss the bread and crackers out as quickly as possible, all while expecting the Dustchucks to rush forward at once. They didn't. The one at the front came up first, picked up a bag of bread in its mouth, and stepped aside. The next Dustchuck moved in after it, then another. They were taking turns, almost like they already knew how this worked. Jack stared from behind the door.

"Are these things getting smarter or what?" Jack tore open package after package and tossed the food through the gap. As one Dustchuck after another came forward, he finally got a proper count. Twenty-three. The three from last night had probably gone back and brought the whole damn family. But even after every Dustchuck had food, they still didn't leave. They settled down on the open ground outside the convenience store and started eating. Jack watched them eat for a moment, then headed into the storage room.

After digging around for a bit, he found a large wooden basin. It looked like an oversized foot bath, and he had no idea why anyone would keep something like that in a convenience store. But now, it was useful. Jack carried the wooden basin to the entrance, cracked the door open just enough to shove it outside, and pulled the door shut again with only enough space left for the hose. Then he ran back to the storage room, connected the hose to the faucet, and turned on the water.

Water poured into the basin, rising steadily. Outside, almost all the Dustchucks stopped eating. A few stood up, and the rest began shifting uneasily. Then one Dustchuck let out a sharp squeak. The whole group went quiet. Jack looked toward it. The Dustchuck that stepped forward was slightly larger than the others, with several pale scratch marks across its gray-brown hide. It padded toward the glass door. Jack tensed as it came closer.

"Hey, don't try anything stupid." The Dustchuck stopped in front of the glass door and lifted one paw toward the narrow gap. Jack tensed, but the paw stopped short and did not push any farther inside. Outside, more than twenty gray, dusty giants crouched on the reddish-brown sand without making a sound. Jack stared at the outstretched paw for a few seconds before he finally understood.

"You want to shake?" The Dustchuck did not move. Jack hesitated, then carefully reached through the gap. The paw was much larger than his hand, rough and hard, with sand still clinging to it. He held it lightly at first, ready to pull back at any second. The Dustchuck moved its paw once. Not hard. Just enough to answer. The system's voice rang out in his head.

"Human. Congratulations. Mission complete." Jack froze for a second. Then he looked at the Dustchuck in front of him and tightened his grip slightly.

"Alright," he said.

"From now on, if you want food, come to me." The Dustchuck withdrew its paw, looked at Jack, and gave a small nod. Then it turned back toward the group and let out a short squeak. The other Dustchucks stirred, and one by one, more than twenty pairs of eyes turned toward Jack again. Jack looked at them, then at the shelves behind him, and a bad feeling slowly crept up his spine.

"…I think I just opened a tab."