“Ahem. Master, these are all the files you asked about in regards to the castle remnants. We have yet to compile everything since it’s the rats left behind a huge mess. There was literally shit all around the place, and they have no sense of cleanliness at all.” Weslie sighed as she wiped her sweat away.
“I cannot possibly read while you guys wait for me to be done with that,” Jin said as he took one of the files and flipped through the pages.
“Sure, you can!” Qiu Yue injected. “In fact, I insist you do, so we can get on with the agenda. Especially since you are their masters, it wouldn’t be right if you are the only one unaware. But you will definitely piss off your Sub System Users and bellators if you don’t hurry it along.”
“Qiu Yue!” Lynn frowned her eyebrows as if to stop her incessant remarks.
“Relax, it’s fine. He is used to my stark remarks.” Qiu Yue pointed at Jin who had already gone back and was seemingly engrossed with the file right in front of him. Weslie had purposely created a summary of the castle’s investigations that could enhance his current knowledge and placed it on top of the pile.
“He may not look like it, but when it comes to reading, his mind turns one track, and Jin will absorb whatever he reads. Though I think the process became more pronounced with the powers of the System.”
The Red Panda Tactician was spot-on as Jin was using his Inverse Eyes to skim through the entire document and subconsciously picking up the important points. While he was not some boy wonder who merely needed to flip the pages being able to retain all the information, it was considerably fast enough.
“I think I got the gist of it. Weslie, thank you for compiling it. I will read it more in-depth later.” Jin said as he closed the file after about five minutes and got to the next agenda. The discussion of their plan to eliminate the Demon Rats.
“We have previously done a series of full deep scans of the Northern Region courtesy of Peppers. While it has yet to be updated with the latest scan since she was busy aiding me, the data had been given to the System and Qiu Yue for analysis. They have come up with a plan that’s viable now that we know the devices are working even better than ever. I shall give the stage to our tactician to explain more.” Jin told them and took a set, while Qiu Yue came forward.
“First of all, I would like you all to give a round of applause to Weslie. Her completion of the Demon Rat lure device has proven very useful during Wecha’s defence, and she has already managed to further improve the lure’s range. According to the System’s analysis, it should be at least two times more effective now. We have already recycled the older model and replicated a number of the newer ones, so they will prove useful in our elimination plan.”
“After going through all the data about their number, their behaviour and their reproduction rate, we can safely say that they are nowhere close to their potential maximum growth. Unfortunately, we believe that with us proving to be quite the nuisance for them, they are likely to come back in even larger numbers.”
“Don’t they have like one place we can strike to interrupt their growth?” Ixel asked when he heard Qiu Yue’s analysis results. He was thinking of using pure brute strength to wipe the Demon Rats away.
“The danger their hideouts pose will increase drastically based on their growth. While we did kill quite a fair bit of rats in the area, we estimate that they have already repopulated that number to continue as it is.” Qiu Yue continued.
“Fortunately, what they lack now are resources. The Northern Region was said to be the lushest of all the regions with the most fertile grounds. However, the rats had rampaged to the point where they killed almost every single farmer that had the knowledge on how to cultivate such lands.”
“If I may add based on Weslie’s reports. They are using technology to grow their food based on the tools and samples they found within the castle. She suspected the North and South Scholars are helping the rats to a certain extent, but their limited knowledge on farming made it an obstacle to their progress rather than a boon. It’s almost a miracle that we found the seeds safe room intact since they are desperate to get food supplies up.” Jin, who continued to read the reports that interested him, said it out loud.
“Hah! That’s great. I guess our raids on their towns’ warehouses have been beneficial.” Dread Reaver interrupted out.
“Not to mention, we took the human prisoners to safety. Or well, relative safety.” Flame Ripper added. “Wouldn’t it be better if we just teleport those humans to our instances?”
“The System never liked that. It still preferred talents because of the limited catching space.” Jin replied as he shuffled another page of the reports.
“Hahaha! The System having a limited catching space? That sounds almost impossible.” Wyrstriker said as he knew how much stronger Jin’s army was compared to the first time they met.
“But in any case, I think by cutting their supplies, we might have actually been aggravating their methods to be even more desperate in regards to those they still hold in captivity,” Wyrstriker added.
“It’s not like it was wrong to raid their warehouses.” Jin voiced his opinion out. “After all, if I might be so bold to say, but we gained excellent quality food supplies for our shop and to feed those Farming Humans and the other minions. The gold didn’t hurt either, even if we gave out a good portion of it to support the Resistance. However, it is certainly true that in return, they slaved the humans in their capital even harder based on Sebastia’s reports. That was also why she was quite concerned about saving the humans from the floating castle. After this major setback, I can’t imagine it getting any better. But we couldn’t really help it…” Jin had forgotten to thank Sebastia properly for continuing to spy despite the risks she had to go through after the Rats learn of their counterpart’s mistake for letting the likes of her into the capital.
“This is a war, Master Jin. No war can be fought without both sides incurring any losses.” Nubwort stated while looking at Jin.
“I know that. I have been thinking hard on this issue for some time now, and no matter what I try to come up with, there will be death involved. Nonetheless, I had accepted such a consequence, and while I can’t always emotionally and physically mourn their loss, I sometimes wonder if there is a better way to do things.” Jin said as he knew there was blood on his hands, be it direct or indirect.
“Still, I can’t help but wish it would be different. Reality has proven that there will always be consequences from our actions, and I have been trying too hard to prevent and mitigate these… Deaths and misdeeds that I sometimes lost sight of the bigger picture. And it’s because of these occasions that the grumpy old System did give fairly sound advice.” Jin emphasised that he was not delusional.
Kill one to save many? Sure, he would love to do it, but the rats had already proven that they did not have any honour and would fight in any way necessary. If it looked bad, they would simply retreat instead of risking extermination.
With some experience and expertise under his belt, Jin would do whatever he could… as long as it was not at the expense of his new ‘family’ of monsters. As selfish as this statement could be, he was still just one human.
