Valdo broke the tense silence. "I'm sorry sorry everyone for what Roeselle said. He hit his head pretty hard when he fell down. Let's just take a breath and calm down." He glanced over at Rem, and let his eyes do the rest of the talking. Shut up.
Sweat started dripping down Rem's face. Whatever initiative he'd had a moment ago was completely gone now — every eye in the tunnel had already drifted to Valdo. If he couldn't convince all of them, then he must change his plan. He had to escape with Valdo,and let Doran and his friends buy them the time to do it instead!
"Yes, I'm sorry everyone. I couldn't even remember my own name when I woke up." He forced the words out with an awkward smile. "It's better if Valdo and I just leave, So i can get treated."
This time, Rem heard Valdo sigh before answering him. "Hearing you say that, I'm pretty sure you've forgotten everything. Even why we joined the Warmongers in the first place."
Rem tried to push back anyway, trying to convince Valdo with all his might.
"I'm sorry, Valdo. I just want my memories back. I feel like I'm living in someone else's body!" That last part echoed loudly in his own ears — that was the only truth he'd told in that whole interaction.
"That's exactly why we can't go back. If you had your memories, you'd already know that..." He stopped for a moment, as if contemplating something sensetive. " If we return now over nothing more than a couple of superficial injuries —when both of us can still fight — we'll be treated as deserters, and the Warmongers aren't known for treating them kindly."
"The only way we'd be accepted back, is if we bring something worth the trouble. An Awakened demon on the verge of becoming a Devil would be the perfect prize."
"Or we go back half dead, no longer in any shape to fight."
"Fine, then let's—" Rem caught himself before the rest of it could slip out. The thought alone made his stomach turn. He swallowed the rest of the sentence before it could finish taking shape, and let it go, staying silent for the rest of the discussion.
Everyone shot him a glance waiting for him to finish his sentence, but he never did, that's when Doran finally was able to speak.
"I don't care about it's corpse," Doran said. "I'm fine with it as long as it's dead. Seeing how much you've talked already, you must have a plan."
"No, not really — I was just laying the groundwork, but I do have a rough framework we could follow instead. So are you interested?"
"Let's hear it, An tAirgead Glic." replied Doran to Valdo.
"That means 'silver haired clever-one,' in case you didn't know." Cathan explained again.
Valdo smiled in response and started speaking.
***
Rem listened to the plan, and he realised quickly time wasn't on their side. Monsters at the awakened rank healed faster and had more stamina than humans, and most didn't even need sleep.
They didn't have any food down here, and lighting a fire was out of the question — they had no idea whether something even worse than that abomination might notice them because of the light. Not that it mattered anyway, they didn't even have anything to start the fire with in the first place.
"So that's it?" Doran asked.
"We unfortunately don't have a lot to go off of. That's the best i could come up with." Valdo Shrugged, and leaned back against the wall behind him. "Do you have any better ideas?"
"No, but i do have a question — when will you and your friend retreat?"
"Only when our injuries are severe enough that we can't fight anymore."
"Good. Then i don't have anything else to add." Doran stood up whilst saying. " Let's start then. We don't have much time to waste."
***
The tunnel finally opened into the Clochán, and before them unfolded a small settlement — stone cottages, some already collapsed, and tall towers rising between them, parts of the stonework missing entirely. The Whole place felt like a ghost town.
Tunnels ran in every direction — some even opened up from below or above — making the whole place look like an ant colony. The group slid down the edge of the wall from the tunnel they'd emerged from.
As they walked along the outer edge of the town, they passed the corpses of fallen soldiers and Warmongers across the ground, scattered by the same compressed-air blasts as before. Unsurprisingly, a handful of monsters had already gathered around some of them.
Clearing these monsters out was the first and most important part of their plan.
The monsters looked as if they had been humans once — hairless, with milky white eyes, Their stomachs torn open, instestines hanging loose. From inside, rows of sharp, short armored legs erupted out, twitching and clattering like the underside of a giant isopod.
Rem swallowed his disgust and was about to move when Valdo and Doran had already dashed forward, blades drawn, pointing forward towards the monsters.
The monsters were slow and weak. Those that reached for Doran or Valdo had their hands svered clean off, but they didn't seem to feel the pain, and none of them panicked. They kept moving forward — until one of them extended the legs sticking out from it's stomach straight at Doran, who barely managed to dodge in time.
Having understood what these things were capable of, the two of them made quick work of the rest without breaking a sweat.
"Disgusting wretches." Doran said, glaring down at the monster's remains before sheathing his weapon and continuing forward.
Rem looked at Doran."You seem to dislike these creatures?" He asked.
To which he answered reluctantly, as if the words were forced out of him" Hmph, These monsters were once human. They were criminals who committed atrocious acts, and in return what was their punishment?"
He spat on the remains of one of them as he said.
"They were sent here and lived in peace, forming societies, building families instead of paying for their crimes. So no I don't just dislike them, I hate them."
"They did turn into monsters at the end, though. Maybe that's a fitting punishment for them, neither alive nor dead but something much worse."
Making their way through the town, they passed through sections already deep in decay — stone crumbling apart, wooden doors rotted through, as if they would disappear into ash by the slightest touch, and some towers that had long since collapsed to the ground.
They walked on as a group of five, and ran into a couple more monsters along the way, Rem finally managed to kill one himself, beheading it quickly before it could launch it's legs at him, and he learned it's name in the process.
[You have slain a dormant beast, Wingless-Cruimh.]