"The wolf hags' gazes are upon us." Aranea smiled, addressing her pack, consisting of five Wolfkins standing before her. Two females, three males, plus her. "To the victor goes the honor, and the loser pays for booze and wallows in mockery."

Today, they would rid the Lonely Road of the insectoid pestilence plaguing its travelers. This road was designated as one of the five primary routes delivering supplies to Fort Uglo, the current seat of His Excellency, Wyrm Lord. Upon arrival, the goods were then distributed throughout the region. Wyrm Lord had been using them to win over the local villages and small settlements, enticing them to join the Reclamation Army. However, after the recent declaration, the people often had to collect their 'humanitarian aid' themselves, and the insectoids grew bold, attacking the caravans and gorging themselves upon the bodies. Thus, the need to end them emerged.

"There will be no mistakes. We go in, clear the caves, and get out. Easy pickings. Don't worry. Check your gear, and…"

"For Spirits' sake, Aranea, everyone here hunted insectoids as cubs." Kate shrugged.

She was another scout in the group and had covered her black armor with ornate prayer inscriptions, meticulously scratching each symbol with her claws until they resembled the shamans'. But, unlike the shamans', her requests were dedicated to purity of mind and body. Her natural fur coat was half black and half rust, a combination viewed as an ominous sign in the tribe. After Kate lost to Aranea in their recent match, Wolf Hag Sonya placed her under Aranea's command as a punishment. A welt on the left side of her head marked where Aranea's fangs had narrowly missed Kate's ear when her leg suddenly gave way. The scout toyed with the orange bead on her paw and continued. "These are just bugs to be quashed. Not even males can fuck this up."

Kate tried to slap Kaleb on his nape, but Aranea caught the arm. Despite being clad in comparatively slender power armor, Kaleb still managed to appear small, and the scout was growing tired of warding off Kate away from him. That idiot even forced other females to stop dominating Kaleb and was busy humiliating the little guy by forcing him to undergo obviously too difficult trials for him. Aranea had no idea why Kate hated Kaleb that much. The two had grown up in the same village and were of the same pack.

"It's fine…" Kaleb went silent as both scouts ignored him.

"No dominating," Aranea growled. "We lost the last sparring session to Pack Olesya because Kaleb was limping. If this happens today, I will declaw you. Got it, Kate?" They locked eyes with each other, and finally Kate nodded, stepping back, throwing one last furious glance at Kaleb.

"It really was my…" After Kate growled, Kaleb stopped talking.

"It's not my problem that he's so soft," Kate angrily mumbled, baring her neck in submission.

"Your training. Your responsibility," Aranea snapped.

"Five minutes until the start of the mop-up operation," Sly eagerly announced, checking the time on his wrist terminal. "The drones are about to finish mapping." He pointed a finger up at the tiny machines flying over the mountains that were scanning the underground caverns and updating the database. Occasional earthquakes in the area made the maps created by previous scouts unreliable. "Seems simple. Two entry points lead to the feeding cave. Yet I have this nagging concern…" Yuki's laughter interrupted him.

"There's always something bothering you. Relax, the job is easy peasy. Think Sonya would've allowed us to participate alone if there was even the tiniest chance of us embarrassing her?" She jokingly elbowed Sly from behind while Kostya nodded. He was the oldest member of their pack, with his fur turning gray. Yuki sported completely black, stripeless fur, a clear sign of Ravager's favor. Despite being deity-marked, Yuki never bothered to rise in rank.

On a nearby mountain, Wolf Hags Sonya and Siri stood with their backs to the moon. While waiting for the operation to start, they had made a ritual bet that their team would eliminate more prey, further motivating the soldiers by placing their pride on the line. Lying One, the shaman who replaced Impatient One after her promotion, waited further into the night. She guarded the gaffers so they could confirm the task was completed and bring solace to the victims' families. They were also expected to cough up tokens, though no one expected their share. Sonya never took payment from any villager, whether insurrectionist or loyalist.

"Do not worry, Sly. I've read about insectoids. There's only one reason they're this bold around here." Aranea grinned, pointing to the group's grenade launchers loaded with piercing munitions. "And we happen to have enough firepower to put an end to this particular reason."

"But then we should warn Olesya! She has no idea about…" Sly stopped upon hearing the distant gunfire near the second entrance. "What? It's still too early!"

"And here's our cue. I would've contacted them and shared my suspicions if they had waited…" Aranea sighed smugly, pleased that her prediction had come true, and typed a request to the wolf hag. Olesya always had a drill up her ass, metaphorically speaking. No wonder she broke the rules again. "Get ready to move out, people. The hunt's about to start early. Stay wary of the hollowness detected by the drones. Yuki, Kate, with me at the front. Kaleb, Sly, trail us. Shred anything we leave unbutchered."

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Please let me take the lead as well, Scout," Kostya requested, speaking for the first time during the night. "I can endure as much punishment as any female." Kate gulped, throttling a chuckle.

"Good for you, since you'll be guarding the rear. Keep our boys safe." Aranea smiled sweetly at him as she received an update from Sonya, who approved their advance.

It was wiser to wait for a wolf hag's command; Sonya tended to beat out any unwanted initiative from her subordinates, in addition to kicking them for not exhibiting said initiative. Balance and common sense were key. Don't challenge, and you won't be challenged. Questions were good; doubts implied arrogance. Kostya nodded unhappily but fell in line obediently.

The group charged to the cave's entrance, activating their lenses. Any Wolfkin could see in the dark to an extent, but the latest state's inventions permitted them to perceive the night effortlessly, and no one was foolish enough to reject assistance. A map flashed in the left corner of Aranea's eye, showing her location. Icons indicating the approximate status of her team floated on the right. Aranea turned them off because, in the past, they frequently displayed incorrect information and often obscured the field of vision rather than helping. The internal systems of their suits still weren't as advanced as the Order's.

After a brief hesitation, she also turned off the map. The terrain wasn't unusual; there was no need for it. In its place, she summoned the omnidirectional vision, letting the cameras installed within their armor project a full 360-degree view of their surroundings onto her retinas. The holo-projection strained her eyes, but the Wolfkins never risked permanent eye damage from it, no matter how long they used the stressful observation mode. And the safety of her pack was well worth a pathetic irritation.

She sniffed the dry, hot air inside the cave, tasting it in addition to the stench of slime—a substance used by the insectoid workers to glue rocks together. Not a single bone, or even a splinter of one, cracked underfoot. A thin smile spread wide on her lips. She was right. Olesya and her team might've gotten a head start over them, but they absolutely lacked the proper tools to succeed flawlessly. That thought banished the smile. It was prudent to hurry. I can't mock Olesya if she gets hurt or killed, right? Aranea thought as she heard noises and the wolfkins readied their shardguns.

Ahead, the road turned right, and the pack jumped backwards in response to the scout's movements. Cracks widened in the ceiling, opened by sharp appendages breaking through concealed alcoves, and a swarm of insectoid drones rained down upon the position where the Wolfkins had been standing a moment earlier, joined by the secondary wave pouring from the turn of the corridor ahead.

Crafty! Aranea opened fire. Each shardgun shot unleashed a cylinder that was in turn coming apart, releasing armor-piercing projectiles traveling at 400 m/s. It was the favorite weapon of the Wolf Tribe since the ancient days, as it complemented their unrelenting advance well, and their thunderous barking often deafened the ears of Normies opponents, while the Wolfkins reveled in these pleasurable sensations. Though it lacked accuracy for ranged warfare due to the wide spread of its deadly projectiles, the shardgun was worth its weight tenfold in close quarters, easily suited for clearing wide patches occupied by hostile forces. In the confines of the cave, the shards sheared the chitin plates of the drones, killing them en masse and maiming those at their rear.

"She is definitely here!" Aranea yelled, watching Sly's nervous nod through the cameras. The scout made a mental note to ask Yuki to cheer him up later, as Aranea considered herself rather poor at inspiring people.

Killing was her forte.

Insectoid drones, also known as workers, were six-legged creatures, roughly reaching an adult Normie's knee in height. In length, a rare exemplar was longer than one meter. Deceptively sluggish in their advance, they often sacrificed a dozen to lull a brazen warrior into a false sense of security, and then another dozen would gore her after a quick burst of movement from close distance. Each of their legs ended in a sharp claw, capable of splintering stone and even tearing through a steel plate. Hairs covering the critters' limbs served to let them traverse vertical surfaces, and their long mandibles were strong enough to crack open an armored vehicle and effortlessly bite off a Wolfkin's limb.

And yet, when their trap was foiled, they were the ones dying. The workers became little more than chaff for the soldiers as they advanced into the firing line. The instant Aranea, Yuki, and Kate used up their thirty shots of ammo, they dropped to one knee to reload. In this exact moment, not missing the supposed opportunity even by a hair, the living, chitinous, ravenous rug charged forth in a burst of blinding speed, their bodies briefly blurring.

With calm coordination, the rear members fired above their allies' heads, tearing gaping holes in the ranks of the incoming creatures, sending limbs flying, pushing them back, and purchasing precious respite for those in the front to finish reloading without haste and continue the slaughter. Insectoids did not care for individual losses, but the pack inflicted unacceptably high losses upon them. Just as Aranea put her finger on the trigger, the living stream moved backward, like a river's wave. The injured and maimed threw themselves into the trajectory of the shards, while their healthy comrades spilled over the walls, hurrying to escape around the corner and preserve themselves for the next ambush.

"Broke them!" Yuki yelled. "Let's finish them off and throw a party!"

"Wait!" Aranea ordered, and Kate nodded. Too simple, if she were here. "Slow, no hurry. In the twinkle of an eye, or a lazy blink…" Her red lenses illuminated the darkness of the tunnel. "…matters not to us."

"Pack Olesya will get a better score," complained Kaleb. "Sorry. Hate being outdone."

"We won't," Kate whispered. "Focus on staying untouched, male."

They proceeded without breaking ranks, hearing the distant chittering disappearing ahead. The tunnel here also rounded around the ceiling, but its sides were widened, and they noticed the first sights of unlucky souls. White bones, devoid of even the slightest scrap of mummified leather, glittered in the approaching light, scattered between the stone formations, sticking out from the ground, and hanging from above.

"Should we collect remains for burial, Scout?" Sly asked.

"You stupid? Record them and stay in formation," Kostya said.

Why didn't the pests smooth out the area here? Aranea thought, gesturing for her pack to stay alert. Their true trial loomed.

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