Riches and Bitches: I have a gate to an isekai and leveling-up system!

Chapter 158: Moral responsibility

Rushing through the human camp, I kept a guard of whooping seven celestials and four divines. And with this small party to keep me safe from any and all dangers lurking in the generally empty areas of the camp, I continued to make my way across.

My one and only task for the moment was to remain somewhat in the middle of all my men, turning myself into an anchor that kept all the small units together and, at least on paper, connected with the main unit further in the camp.

And once again, only one prerogative filled my mind. The one quality of the job I had to ensure.

The speed.

'We are on the clock, but we should still manage,' I thought, looking around the place while reduced to nothing but a mere observer of the battle. And as much as it was aimed at capturing people rather than killing them… The whole area was already littered with corpses.

Some of the wounded in my raid last night clearly decided to go the easy way, most likely expecting we were going to rip them apart if we got our hands on them.

And glancing at one of the examples of it happening, an area fitted with an open tent filled with bedrolls on the inside…

I gulped my saliva down while clenching my hands a little.

'What a waste…'

Just like the modern planers of warfare cleverly figured out, a wounded enemy was much better than a dead one.

When a soldier died, their commanders would just add him to the list, maybe send a note of his fake bravery back home if said soldier fought for some advanced civilization that cared enough. But a wounded one?

Killing him was out of the question, for it would kill the morale of all the healthy troops alone.

So, one had to care for the wounded, come up with supplies to both keep them fed but also help them with the wounds they incurred during the service…

A dead soldier was just a number. A wounded one, however, was a huge burden to the enemy supply chain.

And so, when I looked at all the corpses that only bore small yet extremely lethal wounds on their wrists, throats, and hearts…

'What a waste…' I thought, dissatisfied that I've now lost one of the cards to play once this warm-up round would conclude and the real, big players would appear.

Shaking my head, I moved my eyes away from the gut-wrenching and extremely stinky sight, focusing back on the task at hand, which was…

"Hurry it up!" I shouted at my personal guard, the group of celestials I was willing to accept tagging along only out of my concern for Fay and her state of mind.

Knowing full well how I would feel if she rushed head-on into a battle I had no right to participate in, I decided to personally ask for the guard. And while those few celestials and divines, as strong as they could be, wouldn't be a match for any major threat that could upset the balance of the battle, I could at least ignore pretty much everything below that level.

And just like I anticipated, every once in a while, my guard would either find a few hiding cowards or come under the attack of a small group of self-rallied troops. While the first type simply bound up with spells… the corpses of the people that belonged to the other type soon marked the path we took across the burning camp.

The air grew heavy from all the smoke, filling everyone's nose with an unpleasant aroma.

Somewhere, some corpses had fallen prey to the blaze, spreading the sickening sweat aroma throughout the bloody battlefield.

"FASTER!" I shouted, trying to manage all the sabotage groups to my one side while maintaining contact with the other half of my unit already starting to clash with the rear guards of the human concentration point on the other side.

'Faster!'

I thought to myself, not even sparing my voice to shout it, as I left the main unit behind and rushed ahead. And soon, the first diversion and cleaning groups started to rejoin my guard, instantly swelling our numbers.

From merely twelve to twenty-one, from twenty-one to forty-seven, and so on.

Sometimes, a group of two perfectly fine protectors would appear. At other times, two out of three that appeared would be fine, while the last one lagged behind due to a varying degree of injuries.

There were even times when the wait for the next group of stragglers was prolonged, making me worried about a potentially grave threat hiding somewhere to our backs after clearing one or two of the small, hunting groups…

Only for three more pairs to appear the very next moment before I could seriously start to consider the idea of taking my time to search the camp again.

In the end, though, my worry changed nothing. Because even if I wanted, I didn't have the time to waste on searching through the camp for some imaginary threat. And even if one existed, then as long as I was fast enough…

"Move!" I shouted, pushing my own speed to the limit, barely managing to keep up with the celestials at the front.

At this point, I didn't really need to be anywhere near the front ranks… But just like my hands burned on my gun before, they were now itchy to finally use it.

After all, with the knowledge of how easily I could grow stronger through he means of battle… How could I give up on the opportunity to do so?

Most of this attack was my doing anyway, so I've already had to take responsibility for all the deaths incurred in its wake. And with that in mind, what would a few humans that I would kill personally change? With how much death I've seen on the burning streets of the camp, what would a few more corpses do?

And that was only accounting for what I saw, ignoring the vastness of violence that was hidden from my eyes further down in the camp.

'And all of this death pales to what's likely happening around Loraz,' I thought, gritting my teeth as I sped up.

"Move faster, damn it!" I shouted, gripping the handle of my shottie a bit harder as I sped up even more. "The longer we take, the more of our people will die!"