Chapter 659: Choices and Cowards

Through the spyglass with a cracked spot, Ebul clearly saw a long dragon of wagons, being slowly driven into the outpost’s camp under the demon race’s herding.

In a harsh climate like the Abyss, it was impossible to raise horses. Most low-ranking demonfolk didn’t even know how to handle horses; they could only scare and drive them along. So from time to time a horse would panic and bolt, rearing up and screaming, and those demonfolk—who had long been drooling over horse meat—would immediately rush up and chop down with a blade, then howl excitedly as they pounced on and gulped down the warm, reeking horse blood.

The convoy moved in fits and starts, and would even break into chaos at times because of scrambling over supplies, so the transport was extremely slow. Ebul roughly counted and found there were at least a hundred wagons being brought into the camp.

“Damn it! Our grain and supplies!”

Ebul slammed the ground hard, cursing himself that it must have been some unit withdrawing that had actually forgotten to burn the grain and baggage trains, letting these beasts pick up the leftovers.

Of course, there was another possibility—one his instincts ignored.

“Over a hundred wagons of grain and materials—this isn’t {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} some small amount.”

Ebul calculated quickly. He was only a squad captain, but he’d been on good terms with that logistics guy who’d been hacked into several pieces by the demon race, so he could roughly estimate how long a force could last if all those wagons were packed full.

“Enough to supply a thousand-man unit for a whole month!”

After he finished that calculation, a look of struggle suddenly surfaced on Ebul’s face, like he was wrestling with a choice that was hard to make.

“Wait.”

Gree stared at Ebul’s face, as if he’d suddenly seen through the thought, and urgently said, “Don’t tell me you want the few of us to attack that camp.”

“Not attack the camp. I just want to find a chance to burn those supplies...”

“Are you serious?”

“Of course I’m serious.”

Ebul lowered the spyglass and turned his head, looking at him strangely. “Do you think I’m the kind of person who jokes about something like this?”

“I think you’re fucking joking!”

Gree suddenly snapped. He grabbed Ebul by the collar and slammed him to the ground.

The wound on his face twisted with rage, making it look even more ferocious and ugly.

“Ebul! Wake up. We’ve got five people, for fuck’s sake! They’ve got a camp of at least a hundred, and a dedicated outpost on watch! Burning supplies? How is that any different from going to die!”

“It is different. At least if we succeed, more people won’t have to die. With that much grain and supplies, do you know how many people it’ll get killed indirectly? We can’t just let those demon bastards have it for free.”

“Success, success... You don’t even think about what the odds of success are. I’d rather hope to dig a piece of real gold out of your ass!”

“We can succeed!”

Ebul fired back quickly. “The demon race just won a battle, their guard is low right now. And those demon bastards already have chaotic discipline to begin with. There’s obviously no high-ranking demon sitting here in this outpost, either, and those low demons are stupid—just a pack of animals that can only scream. If the five of us sneak in and we’re only trying to burn the supplies... I won’t say it’s a hundred percent, but I can guarantee there’s a chance we can pull it off!”

“With them like this, wouldn’t it be easier for us to sneak through the outpost and live!”

Gree got more and more worked up, snarling, “I’m telling you, you just want revenge. You don’t even want to live anymore!”

“...”

Silence.

Like something fragile had been stabbed straight through, Ebul—who’d been calmly explaining to Gree just a moment ago—gradually had a trace of anger rise in his eyes, too.

“Yes! I want revenge!”

Ebul seized Gree’s wrist, crushing it until it flushed red, and said harshly, “Gree, you’re an old hand who’s been with me this long. You should know how many people my squad had at the start... twenty-three! Twenty-three real men! But what now? Only five left! They were a merchant’s son, a farmer’s son, a fisherman’s son. They were handed to me, and I couldn’t bring them back!”

“Do you know? When I close my eyes, it’s their faces. They’re crying, blaming me, wailing... Some of them weren’t even as old as my son! They didn’t even get married! Even if it’s just to avenge them, I want nothing more than to tear those demon bastards apart alive!”

“Then you should live and get back. There’ll be plenty of chances to tear demon bastards apart later, not go die here!”

“But!!”

Ebul’s eyes were red, and his voice suddenly turned. “If I walk away like this right now, and let those demons swallow that batch of supplies and grow their strength, I’ll feel even guiltier, because even more people—just like those merchant’s sons, farmer’s sons, fisherman’s sons in the squad—will die! Even if I never see their faces, I’ll still feel like they died because of me!”

“The fuck are you playing at, acting like some great saint? Who gives a shit whether those people live or die, what does it have to do with us!”

Gree was so furious he actually raised his fist to swing.

“B-both of you, calm down!”

Seeing things getting worse, Vick rushed up to try to separate them.

But Polly blocked him from the side.

Polly looked at Vick and shook his head.

“...”

The two of them were panting, glaring at each other, like time had frozen.

But the fist still didn’t come down in the end.

Gree stared at the man beneath him—stupid beyond belief—and that man stared back. Even after trudging through this barren Gobi for days, it still hadn’t ground down that viciousness in his bones.

“Fuck!”

Gree shoved Ebul away, then staggered back and dropped to sit on the ground himself.

“A naive bastard like you is the captain?”

“Yes. A bastard like me is the captain.”

Ebul straightened his collar. His calm, pained gaze swept over Vick, Polly, and Morris to the side.

“You too. If you want to curse me, then curse me. I deserve it. If you don’t curse me now, you might not get another chance later.”

The three of them shook their heads at the same time. Polly and Morris, who’d been in the army for years, didn’t say anything at all, silently starting to prepare instead. Vick leaned in, puffed out his chest, clenched his fist, and said, “I believe in you, Captain!”

“...”

Ebul patted Vick on the shoulder and let out a long sigh.

“Then we start drawing up the plan and assigning tasks.”

Ebul drew his dagger and began writing and sketching in the sand. “I observed roughly. Those wagons are all being brought into this area of the camp, and near this area there are two outposts, one here and one here...”

“That’s pretty far apart. Looks like those demon bastards really are lax,” Polly said.

“Formations and disciplined defense were never the demon race’s strong suit. Those bastards are more like beasts—under the drive of higher demons, they just bite and tear at everything mindlessly. After fighting this long, you still don’t understand what those things are?” Ebul said.

He drew an X in the opposite area and said in a low voice, “But even so, they outnumber us by a lot. To be safe, we need someone to make a disturbance and draw attention. Polly, Morris—how many alchemical bombs do you still have?”

“None,” Polly shook his head.

“I don’t have any either,” Morris replied. “Used them up a long time ago.”

“Is that so...”

Ebul frowned. If they didn’t have alchemical bombs—

“I do!”

Vick suddenly yelled excitedly, “Captain Ebul, I still have alchemical bombs!”

As he spoke, Vick actually pulled three black spherical objects out of his clothes.

“That many?”

Ebul was shocked. Alchemical bombs were scarce supplies in the army; a squad would get fewer than ten in a whole month. He usually had Polly and Morris manage them—where did Vick get so many?

“Heh heh... When things were chaotic, I secretly picked them up,” Vick scratched his head, embarrassed.

“You little punk. Even while running for your life, you didn’t forget this stuff!”

Ebul put on a show of anger and thumped Vick on the head once, but he couldn’t stop himself from smiling.

With a full three alchemical bombs, they could cause a disturbance big enough to put the whole camp on edge, and their odds of success would definitely rise a lot.

“The thing to make a disturbance is solved, but what about the thing to burn the supplies?”

Right then, Morris—who was usually silent—spoke up.

“At a time like this, those demon bastards won’t let us light fires slowly, and those supplies are packed in different wagons. If we just set fire directly, it might be hard to get it all to catch.”

“That’s true. That’s a problem.”

Ebul nodded. What Morris pointed out really was crucial.

But...

“This is actually the least thing to worry about, because I’ve got this!”

As he spoke, Ebul suddenly reached down, shoved a hand into his belt, and fumbled around behind his backside.

Not long after, he pulled out a small cylindrical object, about the length and thickness of a finger.

“This is... a small magic scroll!”

Everyone was stunned. Nobody expected Captain Ebul to be hiding something like that.

“Yes. A small magic scroll. It’s inscribed with a burning spell. That logistics friend of mine secretly slipped me an extra one. It’s small, but it’s enough to burn all those supplies to ash.”

“So that’s how it is.”

Everyone was fired up, because once they added it up, they realized that with alchemical bombs and a small magic scroll, the plan actually did have some real feasibility.

“Just...”

Vick stared at that little scroll, then asked curiously, “Captain, where did you even hide this thing?”

“...”

Everyone fell silent, but the look in their eyes got complicated.

A cylindrical scroll, pulled from behind the butt—so it had been hidden...

“You really did pull gold out of your ass,” Gree snorted.

“What are you thinking!”

Ebul said with a straight face. “I pulled it out of the little pouch behind my butt, not what you’re imagining!”

“Oh, I get it, I get it!”

They all nodded seriously, but that meaningful look made it hard not to suspect what, exactly, they “got.”

After that bit, the tense atmosphere loosened a lot.

“Alright, enough of that. Now that all the tools are ready, the most important question is... who’s going to be the bait?”

Back to the point, Ebul’s gaze swept over Polly and Morris. Both were experienced veterans, fully capable—but the problem was...

One had injured a lower leg, and the other still had a thigh wrapped in bandages.

Making two people who struggled even to run be the bait was asking too much.

So in the end, Ebul’s eyes landed on Vick. He hesitated again and again, and then finally—

“I’ll do it.”

All of a sudden, Gree snatched the alchemical bomb from Ebul’s hand and said, “I’ll be the bait.”

“You?”

Ebul froze for a moment, staring blankly at Gree—who had just been fiercely against this plan. “Why?”

“Heh. Why, why.”

Gree spat, but with no water he didn’t spit anything out. He laughed coldly and said, “I’m not stupid, but I’m not some coward either. Letting some little brat whose hair hasn’t even grown in yet run out in front of me to go die—if that got out, even my timid old wife who doesn’t dare kill a chicken would curse me as a useless ballsack.”