Truth be told, I didn’t care all that much about their shenanigans unless, of course, it affected me directly…which brings us back to this situation, wasn’t doing “that” in an open environment like this, immoral? That’s why I forbade any uncivilized conduct that wasn’t safe for work.
Because of that, those rodents were unable to find a wife to get their bones honed, poor things. Previously, they used to be able to go spelunking in the slime cave whenever and wherever they wanted to; privacy wasn’t even a concept to them.
Compared to them, the dogmen were a lot more obedient and did their utmost to complete the task I set out for them —exactly like a real dog. In fact, I was starting to feel a little bad about treating them like back up rations.
Speaking of dogs, after consuming that five-star soul, Violet Snow didn’t end up evolving as I expected. Her body showed no outward changes at all and the only thing that was different was that her mana pool increased.
However, setting aside all these unnecessary things, it was now time to push onwards. Just like before, the Abaddon Rodents were on vanguard duty.
The traps I envisioned didn’t appear in the end, in fact, we weren’t even ambushed as we proceeded onwards. Naturally, there was no chance of us taking a wrong turn since it had been a completely straight road up till now without any forks. Thus, the days passed in such a peaceful manner and even I began to miss those undead attacks. As for why that was so…that’s because we ran out of food.
Prior to entering the Door of the Dead, I had no intentions at all of preparing too much rations. Back then, my plan was to fuel our battles with battles. Besides, food storage was extremely impractical in hell. However, as if fate itself was teasing us, we didn’t encounter any large scale undead assault other than that bone pillar and those titan skeletons. Truly, there was no danger to be had at all. But that didn’t make me feel happy at all because that meant my plan was ruined!
‘In the end, there’s really no choice but to eat ourselves,huh…oh, I mean to eat our comrades.’
As the saying goes, man is iron, food is steel, one meal missed is a day of panicked hunger. This was especially so since we were still faced with an unknown danger ahead of us; at any time, an enemy army could waylay and destroy us. Thus, our bellies had to be filled up in order to ensure we had enough stamina for any future battles. In the light of that, the only option available to us was what I had planned at the start…eat those rodents…
(TL: Iron is weaker than steel so man is weak to hunger.)
Just like that, with no food leftover to speak of, the Abaddon Rodents became our back up ration source starting from their lowest ranked members.
On the second day of our food shortage, I gave the command myself to slaughter two thousand Abaddon Rodents in order to fill our stomachs. Truth be told, giving out that order left me feeling extremely helpless. After all, those rodents were my slaves and as slaves, I had still had a host of tasks for them to complete such as, being fodder, lab rats, etc. However, for the sake of our progress, I had no choice but to send out that cruel command.
The moment that command was sent out, no matter who they were, whether they were the rodents who were about to be slaughtered or the dogmen who knew that they were only a little further up the totem pole, they all had a conflicted look on their faces. On the other hand, there wasn’t that much of a reaction from the other races. Feeding on each other was something they were used to already.
No matter how much those rodents protested, it was useless. In the face of absolute power, those rodents only had to obey. Those who resisted were slaughtered on the spot and became ration themselves.
If they were humans, I definitely wouldn’t have given out such a cruel command because I still identified as a human at the end of the day and not a devil. Perhaps deep down, I was nothing but a racist.
Honestly, the moment those words left my mouth, I was struck with an indescribable sense of guilt. Yet, what was I to do if not so? Heading back wasn’t an option anymore so all we could do was advance.
Furthermore, allowing them to starve would have only worn down our army’s unity and might even cause a rebellion. Lizardman might turn on lizardman for food. Even my trusted allies, the devils, medusas and harpies would most probably start a war with each other let alone the temperamental demonic werewolves.
Thus, I had to nip this problem in the bud even though innocents would have to be sacrificed in the process. Besides, I enslaved them with the idea of using them as fodder and rations in the first place. Other than that sense of guilt, I wasn’t all that opposed to it…probably.
Unknowingly, I became an even colder person.
For the next few days, nothing really changed. There were still no signs of an ambush and we had to subsist on rat meat. Because I didn’t know how much longer this would last and also because our rat supply was dwindling to begin with, I had my warriors control their appetite to the best of their abilities. With each passing day, I lowered the number of rodents we slaughtered but even so, nearly all 8000 of those rodents were slaughtered in order to sustain us for ten days.
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