If it were her...
"I know a few old bookshops where some... unusual rare books and fragmentary manuscripts circulate," Dorothea said, lowering her voice. "I'll give you the addresses later."
"All right."
Vanessa nodded in agreement, then looked at the Dog Corpse in the corner. "Dorothea, do you want to make a sacrifice too? There are still some wild dog carcasses left."
Dorothea waved a hand and took a step back. "I'll think about it some more. Besides, look at you two! The risks inherent in sacrifice far exceeded expectations. No one should try it until we can ensure it's absolutely safe!"
The others all nodded.
Over the next two days, they spent almost all their time outside hunting wild dogs.
They caught quite a few and also ran into someone else hunting them.
He was a poor man with nowhere left to turn, so ravaged by hunger that he barely looked human anymore, and he had set his sights on the wild dogs.
He had stabbed a lone wild dog to death with a sharpened wooden stick, but at a terrible cost.
His leg had suffered several bites, and his blood left a trail along the ground.
This drew more wild dogs. Fortunately, Vanessa and the others arrived in time.
Vanessa and the others bandaged his wounds, then traded a small bag of roasted potatoes for the wild dog carcass he held.
The man thanked them profusely, as though clutching at a lifeline.
According to him, many people in the Slums no longer had enough to eat. Others had killed dogs for food too, but their eyes would grow redder and redder, and before long they would go mad and die.
If he had any other choice, he would never have gone after a wild dog.
Vanessa and the