diff --git a/src/error.rs b/src/error.rs
index ab39a3c3..efdc6484 100644
--- a/src/error.rs
+++ b/src/error.rs
@@ -35,6 +35,8 @@ impl Error {
     pub const UNSUPPORTED: Error = internal_error(0);
     /// The platform-specific `errno` returned a non-positive value.
     pub const ERRNO_NOT_POSITIVE: Error = internal_error(1);
+    /// Encountered an unexpected situation which should not happen in practice.
+    pub const UNEXPECTED: Error = internal_error(2);
     /// Call to iOS [`SecRandomCopyBytes`](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/1399291-secrandomcopybytes) failed.
     pub const IOS_SEC_RANDOM: Error = internal_error(3);
     /// Call to Windows [`RtlGenRandom`](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/ntsecapi/nf-ntsecapi-rtlgenrandom) failed.
@@ -164,6 +166,7 @@ fn internal_desc(error: Error) -> Option<&'static str> {
     match error {
         Error::UNSUPPORTED => Some("getrandom: this target is not supported"),
         Error::ERRNO_NOT_POSITIVE => Some("errno: did not return a positive value"),
+        Error::UNEXPECTED => Some("unexpected situation"),
         Error::IOS_SEC_RANDOM => Some("SecRandomCopyBytes: iOS Security framework failure"),
         Error::WINDOWS_RTL_GEN_RANDOM => Some("RtlGenRandom: Windows system function failure"),
         Error::FAILED_RDRAND => Some("RDRAND: failed multiple times: CPU issue likely"),
diff --git a/src/hermit.rs b/src/hermit.rs
index 570b03d9..21649d1f 100644
--- a/src/hermit.rs
+++ b/src/hermit.rs
@@ -1,5 +1,10 @@
 use crate::Error;
-use core::{cmp::min, mem::MaybeUninit, num::NonZeroU32};
+use core::{mem::MaybeUninit, num::NonZeroU32};
+
+/// Minimum return value which we should get from syscalls in practice,
+/// because Hermit uses positive `i32`s for error codes:
+/// https://github.com/hermitcore/libhermit-rs/blob/main/src/errno.rs
+const MIN_RET_CODE: isize = -(i32::MAX as isize);
 
 extern "C" {
     fn sys_read_entropy(buffer: *mut u8, length: usize, flags: u32) -> isize;
@@ -8,14 +13,16 @@ extern "C" {
 pub fn getrandom_inner(mut dest: &mut [MaybeUninit<u8>]) -> Result<(), Error> {
     while !dest.is_empty() {
         let res = unsafe { sys_read_entropy(dest.as_mut_ptr() as *mut u8, dest.len(), 0) };
-        if res < 0 {
-            // SAFETY: all Hermit error codes use i32 under the hood:
-            // https://github.com/hermitcore/libhermit-rs/blob/master/src/errno.rs
-            let code = unsafe { NonZeroU32::new_unchecked((-res) as u32) };
-            return Err(code.into());
+        // Positive `isize`s can be safely casted to `usize`
+        if res > 0 && (res as usize) <= dest.len() {
+            dest = &mut dest[res as usize..];
+        } else {
+            let err = match res {
+                MIN_RET_CODE..=-1 => NonZeroU32::new(-res as u32).unwrap().into(),
+                _ => Error::UNEXPECTED,
+            };
+            return Err(err);
         }
-        let len = min(res as usize, dest.len());
-        dest = &mut dest[len..];
     }
     Ok(())
 }
diff --git a/src/util_libc.rs b/src/util_libc.rs
index 99bee382..f64cc312 100644
--- a/src/util_libc.rs
+++ b/src/util_libc.rs
@@ -8,7 +8,6 @@
 #![allow(dead_code)]
 use crate::Error;
 use core::{
-    cmp::min,
     mem::MaybeUninit,
     num::NonZeroU32,
     ptr::NonNull,
@@ -70,17 +69,19 @@ pub fn sys_fill_exact(
 ) -> Result<(), Error> {
     while !buf.is_empty() {
         let res = sys_fill(buf);
-        if res < 0 {
-            let err = last_os_error();
-            // We should try again if the call was interrupted.
-            if err.raw_os_error() != Some(libc::EINTR) {
-                return Err(err);
+        match res {
+            res if res > 0 => buf = buf.get_mut(res as usize..).ok_or(Error::UNEXPECTED)?,
+            -1 => {
+                let err = last_os_error();
+                // We should try again if the call was interrupted.
+                if err.raw_os_error() != Some(libc::EINTR) {
+                    return Err(err);
+                }
             }
-        } else {
-            // We don't check for EOF (ret = 0) as the data we are reading
+            // Negative return codes not equal to -1 should be impossible.
+            // EOF (ret = 0) should be impossible, as the data we are reading
             // should be an infinite stream of random bytes.
-            let len = min(res as usize, buf.len());
-            buf = &mut buf[len..];
+            _ => return Err(Error::UNEXPECTED),
         }
     }
     Ok(())