Knights of Tezoth

- Stop. - At the next tile Eugene commanded. - Going further is unreasonable, we've strayed too far from the camp and along this entire path we haven't encountered anything worthy of attention. There's no reason to believe the road ahead will be any different.
- My lord! - Rgoktes grew angry at what he heard. - If we turn back now, it will mean we wasted all those supplies on the way here! And that we wasted... Committed such an inhuman deed for nothing.
- Will I get to hear reasonable arguments, or is that all you've got?
- Besides... Besides, perhaps just a few steps ahead food and a place to rest await us! That would solve almost all of our squad's problems.
- Your fantasies won't satisfy hunger. Anything else?
Rgoktes looks at Stefania with a pleading gaze.

— There's a grain of truth in each of your words, — Stefania, who had been indifferent until now, intervened. — On one hand, our supplies are dwindling rather quickly, there are no new ones along the way, and ahead lies uncertainty that could end in a dead end and an expansion of the cannibal diet. On the other — behind us is literally a void that devours people, where someone will have to die again. Two chairs, and both are extremely unpleasant.

Stefania took a short pause. In truth, she had already been thinking about the way back herself, considering that her supplies had thinned out the most, and a few more such routes would essentially lead to her demise. So she was pondering scenarios for retreat. And it seems her thoughts had now ripened into something worthwhile:

— If we go back, we have two scenarios. In the first, we kill the red-faced ones, process them into provisions and continue on. In the second — we kill them again, then resurrect them, or immediately wound them non-lethally to take them prisoner and use them to traverse that zone where half the squad needs to be killed. The conditions didn't say we can't sacrifice captives, so there shouldn't be any problems.

Stefania's voice didn't tremble, but she didn't look emotionless either. She simply no longer wanted to suffer losses among her own people. Despite really wanting to see her colleagues and Lord Adalard, overall she would have preferred the first scenario, since bringing Eugene to the camp right now seemed very dangerous to her. The second problem — in light of recent events, she isn't even sure the camp is still intact and its inhabitants alive. In this damned Ikazkan, anything can happen. And even now, at any second, a sword could fall from above and crush her or Eugene, which would mean inevitable defeat for the rest.

— Naturally, along the way these red-faced ones will have to be not blown up, but specifically beaten, because without their bodies they're useless. Unless, my lord Eugene can selectively blow up the extras, but those are subtleties I don't understand so well. Also, if the meat is edible after all, the idea with the captive freaks can be used for the scenario of further exploration of the area. Nothing stops us from killing them along the way, cooking and eating them. That's probably even better than returning to camp empty-handed, where the only valuable information we could name is the zone our army must not cross, and the demise of Dalias Galiot's squad along with its commander.

Damn, Neir's villain is really playing the role. And Yashchur's character was still wondering why my character didn't like people. They literally came with the goal of genocide.