> not a bug, you send him once to the valley, you get in the ruthless route.
That's simply not true; I just went back and verified that you do NOT get the one-week time skip into the "Ruthless" chapter if you send him out once, are generally nice, and answer Argos using one of the first two options ("I didn't mean to hurt him" or "I didn't think I had a choice").
> there is no neutral route currently
I don't know how well-developed the route is, but there's at least one conversation that's different from the "good" route when you hand him the bottle of wine (haven't played beyond that).