"Do you think whoever is chasing us has swallowed the bait and participated in last night's battle?" Asher spoke loudly, then continued irritably, "If not, it wasn't worth sacrificing 200 people and injuring ten others."

"That's not the important issue right now; what needs to be done is to find out who set fire to the main tent and smuggled Rian." Oliver, sitting across from him calmly, looked around. It was just an ordinary tent with a desk and two chairs, with Asher seated in front of him.

"The most suspicious regarding the fire is Old Sun, as for who smuggled him..." Asher stroked his thick beard as he pondered deeply.

"I suspect it's one of Ethan's loyalists, but to be able to sneak in and even fight with the guards, he must be one of the capable ones." Oliver had some doubts as he thought about it and decisively ordered, "You and Old Owen go interrogate Old Sun about this; we need to know who did it."

"Okay." Asher straightened up and left the tent, leaving Oliver lost in his thoughts. His mind was preoccupied with the events of the battle.

"Damn, when did all this start? Was it when we found the injection, or when we met that person, or when we killed Ethan, or when the tribe turned into a bunch of filthy cannibals? When did our luck become so cursed?" Oliver spoke loudly, as if he were asking himself more than Asher. The situation was deteriorating alarmingly, and he had no clear solutions.

Outside the tent, Asher ignored his shouts and began inspecting the remains of the tribe around him, thinking: "This fool has a weak personality; if I didn't need him to calm the tribe, I would have killed him along with Ethan, but soon..."

In front of him, of the hundreds of tents that were there, only dozens remained. Even the main tent had been consumed by flames. Around the tents, scattered people moaned in pain, all sharing the fact that they had lost at least one limb, while some had lost more than three limbs, and the one who lost the most was one of the corpses left at the site of yesterday's battle.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"You there, call Old Owen and Old Sun and tell them to come to my tent." Asher pointed to one of the random passersby and began walking east to look for his tent.

....

Drip, drip

Water droplets slowly dripped from the rocks at the top of the cave before falling into a bottle placed beneath it. Near that bottle, Rian was tied up with some tattered fabric ropes, but he didn't have the strength even to untie himself. Despair overwhelmed him as he was surrounded by darkness he no longer recognized, in a place where he felt completely alone.

He sat there watching the falling water droplets, thinking to himself: "Am I really this unlucky? After escaping from the tribe, I finally fall into the hands of some cannibals in this damned cave."

"Apart from those three damned kingdoms, the rest of the desert is filled with cannibals and mutants. Damn this cursed world; I will definitely destroy it someday!" Rian shouted at the top of his lungs to vent his extreme anger at what was happening around him. His voice echoed through the empty cave, but it sounded like a child's whimpering in a storm.

"Shut up, you wretch; I don't have the meal right to speak!" A rough voice came from the extended darkness in front of him, from inside the cave. Those voices made his heart race, and he wondered who those people were who were holding him captive and where they had come from.

"Ugh, that kid is so skinny; he won't fill my stomach alone. What about the rest of the food?" Another replied mockingly, increasing Rian's sense of anxiety.

"Hah, of course, I'll eat him; you've eaten more than ten insects this week." The voices grew louder, as if they were agreeing on his fate.

It seemed as if they were discussing dinner, with Rian as the main course they were talking about, his face grew darker, and he could only grit his teeth in frustration. He felt afraid of the unknown, especially when it concerned his life.

On the other side of the darkness, there was a round table surrounded by four iron chairs. Valor and Darin were seated next to each other, while the darkness obscured the faces of the other two.

"Just because I worked hard and found the insects doesn't mean I have to share with you, David!" Darin shouted in response to one of the figures seated in the darkness; their competition over food intensified the situation.

"Could you stop fighting?" Valor waved his hand to silence them before continuing, "Use your brains for a moment; that kid didn't come to this place alone. There must be others with him. David and Vikhai, you two will go look for any signs of other people, and we will take care of the boy."

"You always give us the hard tasks while you prefer Darin over us. Even when you gave us our names, what does Vikhai mean, for God's sake?" complained the one called Vikhai before David, sitting next to him, was dragged away. Their tone of criticism expressed frustration, but in the end, they were forced to carry out the orders.

"I don't even know; I gave you the first name that came to my mind at that time." Valor replied coolly, watching them walk away, trying to control the situation as much as he could.

"We don't know, ugh..." Vikhai let out a shout from the direction where Vikhai and David were heading, it sounded strange, but before Valor could react, the darkness in front of them morphed into a human shape and uttered primitive words: "Kkk, where is Rian?"