I'm going to say that the progress the homunculus research could provide is so huge that it would be worth all the dirty things they are doing for the results.
That said well done breaking her face./
Well, half of it is teamwork ... the rest is both some extra decades in magic research and tactics on the side on the side of Desir team ( a lot of them taugh by Desir himself, as shown in this chapter ) and plain stupid arrogance from the part of the oponent ( that, TBH, could had flattened Desir & Co if it had not severely underestimated them ) ...
But yeah, more realistic than a lot of manga out there indeed ...