Second Genesis

All hell broke loose.

The screeching of the wiry gates hardly kept up with the screeching of the female goblins. Grey had hardly opened the gates when the first smoke bomb was launched at him.

He ducked and let it roll overhead, surging into the encampment—if it could be called that.

The location was dingy and broken, a series of crate boxes and dilapidated tents forming the entire village. Calling it an encampment was probably still more accurate than calling it a village, though. This place looked exactly like how Grey thought a defensive line back in World War One might have looked.

’Definitely a smoke bomb.’

The smoke bombs were black and circular, looking as though they had been welded together with curved metal pieces by the worst welder in the history of welding.

The actual bombs were easy to make out because they were pipe bombs, shaped into cylinders. Even if they were moving through the air much faster, Grey would still be able to tell—let alone the fact they were thrown with the speed of the average child.

Grey held an axe in one hand, catching the smoke bomb with the other. He was about to chuck it when he thought of something.

If he recalled correctly, these smoke bombs always exploded the moment they hit the ground. It was the pipe bombs that were on a timer. Meaning, if he caught them softly enough...

Grey charged, placing the smoke bomb down on a crate he passed by and grinning when it didn’t explode.

The female goblins screeched, realizing things weren’t working after he caught a second one with the same ease.

’Here it comes.’

A pipe bomb was launched through the air, and Grey’s heart basically pumped out of his chest. He was a madman.

’Yes the fuck I am.’

He had already died once. Who gave a damn?

He jumped into the air, catching the pipe bomb out of the skies. He landed on the ground.

’One Mississippi. Two.’

Grey took a heavy step forward and launched it, his arm whipping through the air. The pipe bomb soared.

BOOM.

A wall of hot air slapped against him as he covered his face with his arms.

BOOM. BOOM.

Another set of two explosions went off, a chain reaction larger than Grey was expecting hitting him in waves.

’Dammit.’

Grey was rocked off his feet, and he went flying backward. He hit the ground hard, coughing between his groans.

It seemed he hadn’t taken everything into account after all. Luckily, he hadn’t been hit with any shrapnel, but a dense wave of smoke was wafting out.

That wasn’t just the residue from the bombs, but the chain reaction of the smoke bombs as well.

He clicked his tongue. Those could have been useful. Maybe the one I set aside survived?

He didn’t move, lying on the ground right there and lifting his axe up.

"Fuck you."

Did he know who he was cursing? Nope.

Did it matter? Also nope.

"Come on. Get up."

Grey pushed himself up, ignoring his scrapes and bruises as he pushed through the sea of smoke. He couldn’t see much even when he squinted.

One smoke bomb hadn’t been all that bad, but so many layered made it hard to see—and especially hard to breathe.

He covered his mouth with his floral suit, wading through the mess.

’I think I missed it. Either that or it’s gone.’

He had been looking for the smoke bomb he left behind. It could come in handy in the future, but maybe the wave of air knocked it off the crate and triggered it.

’Hm?’

Grey realized he had, indeed, walked too far. He was going to go back and check when he paused.

At the end here, there was a door.

The encampment was basically a large domed location of the underground cave system. There was one entrance, and that was the wiry gate. But at the other end, there was a large wooden door.

Back during his first go, he had, of course, noticed this door. But he hadn’t been able to open it. Plus, he was eager to use the safe room.

After hours of running around and escaping for his life, he was as tired as could be. He was hoping that clearing this goblin encampment would have been enough to get the safe room to acknowledge him.

When he returned, though, he found the corpse of that girl. Then he got the idea to try and use her suit to see if the safe room would acknowledge him with it.

Unfortunately, the suit didn’t fit him, so it didn’t work properly. Some functions he hadn’t had before opened up, but most of them were still inaccessible.

By the time he returned here, the doors had been opened, and there was nothing inside but a path to another space through what looked like an altar.

He had assumed that this was because he finally had a piece of an interface suit he could use. But now he wasn’t so sure.

As for the reason why, that was because the explosion just now had blown a crack into the doors. To the credit of these large wooden double doors, they still stood tall. But a piece of them had been blown in just enough that a sliver of a crack allowed Grey to see beyond it.

There was another goblin.

It stood there as though a computer in sleep mode, its head lowered. Its hands rested on a large rusted blade, its breathing even.

Grey’s eyes sharpened as he began to piece something together.

’The girl... this boss goblin... I see...’

There must have been someone else—or another group—here. This group was probably responsible for that girl’s death, and while he was running around dealing with all this, they were taking advantage from the back.

But why was it that he hadn’t run into any of them?

’The fucking safe room.’

Grey ground his teeth, but before he could make a decision about what to do, the shifting of something caught his attention.

’Someone’s coming?’