And not just feeling peckish. It's the kind where your stomach lining is digesting itself, and everything you see looks like a roasted chicken leg.
"What is this? Dishwater?!"
A thunderous roar broke the dawn's silence.
In front of the long food distribution line, Bjorn, the three-meter-tall Ursine warrior, was holding a wooden bowl that looked like a thimble in his hand, glaring angrily at its contents.
It was a bowl of grey-green gruel, thin enough to reflect a face, with unidentified plant fibers floating in it.
The old Cat-kin soldier serving the food shook his hand, spilling half the spoonful. "It's rationing. Big guy... endure it. We are all enduring."
"Endure? I moved forty steel beams yesterday! Forty!"
Bjorn slammed the bowl onto the ground, shattering the poor wood instantly. "You give me this? My strength needs fuel! How can I work on an empty stomach?!"
"Pick it up."
A cold voice sounded. Ron, the Cat-kin archer captain, surrounded him with several spear-wielding guards.
"This is Cat-kin food. You foreign freeloaders should be grateful you get anything." Ron's ears flattened, eyes full of hostility. "When you Bears stole our prey before, did you think about today?"
"Who are you calling a freeloader?!"
Bjorn roared, slamming his paw onto the ground, kicking up dust. "I do the work of ten of you! You skinny monkeys who only know how to climb trees!"
The Ursine workers behind him stood up, growling threats. The Cat-kin warriors raised their spears immediately. Even the few Vulpine gnawing on wood crawled under the table in fear.
I stood on the second-floor terrace, looking at the cafeteria about to turn into a brawl, feeling my migraine returning.
"I knew it."
I rubbed my brow, leaning heavily against the railing. "I can figure out how to stack stones so they never fall, Zayla, but I have no idea how to handle people. Especially hungry ones. Back home, this is usually the point where things turn from a crowd into a riot."
Zayla's hand was already on her hilt, eyes cold. "I'll kill the instigator."
"Killing only solves the person raising the problem, not hunger." I pressed her hand down. "Besides, Bjorn is Sarak's darling now. If you kill him, that grumpy Goblin granny will smash my kneecaps with a wrench."
"Then what do we do?" Zayla looked down. "Ron is about to stick his spear into Bjorn's nose."
I sighed and picked up the megaphone.
"Brad!"
Before I could even give the order, Brad, who had been watching impatiently, acted.
He cut into the standoff like a meat bomb falling from the sky. Facing Bjorn, who stood three meters tall, Brad didn't hesitate. He raised his leg for a standard side kick, slamming it into the back of the giant bear's knee.
"OW!"
Bjorn cried out in pain, his massive body crashing down onto one knee uncontrollably.
In the moment their heights leveled, Brad's large hand gripped the back of Bjorn's neck like an iron pincer, pressing his head firmly toward the ground; his other hand casually pressed down on Ron's head, like pressing two disobedient watermelons.
"Shut up, all of you!"
Brad roared, his voice drowning out even the Bear's growl.
"This is a cafeteria! Not a UFC octagon! Anyone who wastes another grain of food, I'll stuff him into Kaelas's acid barrel to make organic fertilizer!"
The scene was temporarily suppressed.
But I knew this was only temporary. Hunger is like steam in a pressure cooker; you can't block it, it needs a vent.
I sighed, preparing to put down the megaphone.
My peripheral vision suddenly caught a detail.
In the shadows of the cafeteria corner, while everyone's attention was drawn to Brad, a figure was retreating silently.
It was Lucas.
The always dutiful Captain of the Guard didn't step forward to maintain order. He lowered his head, clutching something tightly (looked like a piece of moldy bread), and ducked panic-stricken behind a pile of discarded construction materials.
"Strange..."I frowned.
That direction wasn't the barracks, but the abandoned entrance to the underground drainage system. What was he doing there?
An uneasy intuition welled up.
I wanted to call him, but the riot downstairs escalated again—although Bjorn was pinned, other Bears started shoving guards.
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"Damn, this is more urgent."
I had to withdraw my gaze and raise the megaphone again to deal with the immediate crisis. But I mentally marked Lucas with a yellow warning tag.
At this critical moment, anyone's abnormal behavior could be fatal.
1:00 PM. Command Room.
I looked at the pitiful inventory list on the table, feeling like the CEO of a listed company about to go bankrupt.
"Food reserves will last 20 hours." Ela looked pale. "And that's with everyone eating one meal of gruel a day. Tomorrow... tomorrow we really run out."
"Can we hunt?" Brad rubbed his rumbling stomach.
"Outside is full of Wolf Rangers." Zayla shook her head. "Going out is suicide. And the wildlife around here has long been scared off by the Wolf army."
"Can we farm?" Brad didn't give up. "Those Bears look good at digging."
"Farming takes three months; we have three days." I ruthlessly shattered his fantasy. "Unless you know 'Instant-Gro' magic."
No supplies, no reinforcements, only over a thousand mouths waiting to eat.
I stared at the ledger, the numbers feeling like tiny needles pricking my brain. My finger traced the red line on the map—the supply route that was currently empty. "The math doesn't work, Zayla. Even with the half-rations, we’re insolvent in forty-eight hours."
Zayla stepped closer, her golden eyes reflecting the dim torchlight. She didn't look at the ledger. She looked at the map, her gaze locking onto a specific red dot to the north.
"In the wastes, when the hunt is empty, " she said, her voice dropping into a low, predatory purr. "You take someone else's kill."
She tapped the red dot.
The Wolf Vanguard Supply Depot.
"It's half a day's travel," she continued, her hand resting on her hilt. "They have grain, dried meat, and enough iron to re-shoe every warrior we have. They’re sitting on our dinner, Alex. Let me lead a strike team."
Brad's eyes widened. "You want to raid a regular army supply line? The defense will be a meat grinder."
I looked from the map to Zayla, then back to the map.
I said. "If we don't want to watch Bjorn roast Ron tomorrow, we have to go steal the Wolves' lunch."
Just then, hurried footsteps came from outside.
"My Lord! My Lord!"
Lyn, the clever Vulpine girl, rushed in like a gust of wind. She was covered in mud, obviously just back from scouting.
"Slow down." I handed her a cup of water.
Lyn drank it in one go, eyes shining amazingly bright. "I touched the edge of the Wolf convoy! Their convoy is long, lots of food! I smelled salted meat and wheat!"
"What else?" I asked. "How many guards?"
"About two hundred werewolves, and some Wargs." Lyn paused, expression turning odd. "But... besides food, I found a lot of strange big barrels."
"Barrels?"
"Yes, wooden barrels, but sealed tight, and..." Lyn wrinkled her nose, as if the smell was still there. "And leaking a bit of black, sticky liquid. It smelled terrible, like sludge in a stagnant pool, but sharper."
My movements froze instantly.
"Black? Sticky? Sharp smell?"
I grabbed Lyn's shoulders abruptly, force startling the Vulpine girl.
"That smell... was it a bit like the asphalt used to pave roads? Or... the smell of a gas station?"
Lyn shook her head blankly. "I don't know what a gas station is... but Grandpa Kaelas said it's 'Hell's Blood.' He said if that stuff catches fire, water can't put it out."
I let go and slowly sat back in the chair.
Then, the corners of my mouth began to curve up crazily, revealing a smile that chilled both Brad and Zayla.
It wasn't a smile of seeing food.
It was the ecstasy of an engineer seeing infinite energy and raw materials for weapons of mass destruction.
"Black Fire Oil..." I muttered. "The Wolves are using crude oil as fuel?"
"Is that stuff dangerous?" Zayla asked.
"To primitives, it's dirty sludge." My eyes flickered with the fire of the Industrial Revolution.
"But to a modern man..."
"That is liquid gold. It's the moat of our fortress. It's the ticket to send the Wolf army to the sky."
"Tonight's objective has changed."
I issued the command, voice unable to hide the excitement. "We rob the food, but those black oil barrels... even if we take one less bag of wheat, bring back the oil barrels!"
"With this stuff, that crazy old Kaelas will wake up laughing from his dreams."
The better news: We found OIL.
Question of the Day: What is the most valuable resource in a siege?
(Click to prioritize your logistics)
?? A) Food.
Result: Biological Necessity. An army marches on its stomach. If you starve, you lose. It's boring, unsexy, but keeps the heart beating. Survival: Basic.
?? B) Weapons.
Result: The Warrior's Choice. You can have all the food in the world, but if you can't stab the guy trying to take it, you're just a walking lunchbox. Defense: Active.
?? C) Fuel.
Result: The Industrialist's Holy Grail. BINGO. Food keeps men alive; Fuel makes machines gods. Without oil, the steam tank is just a statue. With oil, it's the apocalypse on wheels.
Follow and Rate for the explosive heist!