Dungeon Raider System-Chapter 522: Chickens Part 1

Exiting the dungeon was already a feat worth of praise even for a heavenly rank hunter like Medusa, but doing so while protecting both Emma and the guide they recruited made things even more difficult. To make matters worse, Medusa was also carrying a passed out Tina Celes on her back.

If it was for Medusa, she would have left Tina on the army's care, but Emma insisted on bringing her along because she suspected Tina had information that could become useful for their mission.

It took them a while, but Medusa knew her way across the third world better than anyone since it was the world she first landed when she came with Jon. This allowed her to reach the 'emergency exit' in record time in spite of her circumstances.

The cathedral outside the dungeon was still destroyed and it would remain like that for a couple days when Uriel would eventually come out from the dungeon and fix it by crushing flux orbs in front of it.

Tina remained unconscious the whole way towards the fallen megacity and even on their trip towards the food factory, missing all the events that took place since the moment she passed out until she eventually opened her eyes right outside the synthetic food factory.

"No!" She let out in a gasp with her very first breath after waking up.

"Calm down, would you?" Medusa scolded and proceeded to ignore her and focus her attention on the man they hired as a guide, whom Tina recognized to be the same man she met while making the line for the daily rations.

"As I was saying, my job here was pretty simple. All I needed to do was to make sure the conveyor belt never stopped. If it did, I had to press a button and the entire production line would stop. Each worker had their own individual task and the only thing I know about the process is that it took exactly 28 days from the minute an egg incubated to the moment they were slaughtered."

"That's oddly specific." Emma let out as she jotted down on her notepad everything the man said down to the letter.

"Please, don't make me go in there..." Tina muttered as she struggled to stand up. Noticing how weak she was, Medusa finally offered her a tin foil package that Tina looked at with suspicion.

"It's not synthetic food, it's a military ration... in case your majesty the heir of the Celes company wonders if it's fitting for her exquisite palate." Medusa said as she jokingly made a reverence.

"With what right did you bring me here against my will? I was fine in the dungeon!" Said Tina after wolfing down the entire ration, already feeling much better.

"It's your fault for fainting after saying something so ominous. It's time for you to tell us what you think you know about this factory." Emma said in a cold tone of voice.

Had it been the old Tina, she would have shared everything she knew with them, but now she knew she was completely by herself. She knew she had no friends and no one she could count with and that even after sharing what she knew about the factory, they would still try to push her into heading inside which was something she wanted to avoid at all costs.

Taking advantage of her regained strength and before the rest of the members of her party could even react, Tina ran away like a rat abandoning a sinking ship.

"I told you we had to tie her up!" Medusa scolded Emma who could do nothing but unblinkingly watch Tina disappear in the distance, completely unaware of the consequences of letting her escape.

***

"What do you think?" Asked Uriel after setting foot inside the factory responsible for mass producing Medusa's favorite food and confirming the lights were on.

"She must be... uhm... eating her full." Luna replied nodding her head.

"Not that, I mean, the fact that the lights are on. Do you really think there's cryptids inside? I can't feel anything and what you said before just doesn't make sense. If the chickens raised to make the synthetic food were cryptids, they would disappear after being slaughtered. It's not possible to turn cryptids into food."

"Who knows..." Luna muttered and then fell silent. As usual, it was impossible to tell whether she had a theory or if she just kept an open mind.

Marina left right after leading them to the factory, which meant that they were now on their own. It was a good thing considering that neither Uriel nor Luna could fight properly in the presence of outsiders, though Uriel wished they had someone to lead the way.

The factory was big enough to feed an entire megacity with millions of inhabitants and exploring it by themselves was bound to take a while, though that was also a good sign since it gave a possible explanation as to why Medusa's party failed to come back when they were supposed to.

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"You're doing this on purpose." Uriel finally let out when he couldn't take Luna's silence anymore, but Luna ignored him altogether and walked further inside the building.

They looked in the changing rooms, the staff cafeteria and some meeting rooms, failing to find any trace of the missing party. From time to time, Luna stopped mid track and sniffed the air only to shake her head afterwards. Then, as soon as they saw the end of the production line, Luna suddenly broke the silence.

"There's electricity, which means someone must have recharged the mainframe batteries, but the product isn't coming out."

"That's because there aren't any workers, if the factory could produce on its own there would be no need for employees..." Uriel explained, but Luna disagreed.

"That's... obvious. But isn't it possible that something might be broken and Medusa might be trying to fix it?"

"Of course! She's an engineer! She wouldn't be satisfied just by turning on the power, of course she would stay and fix whatever was wrong with the machine before going out!" After that revelation, both hunters found themselves in a much better mood.

To any onlooker, nothing actually changed as they continued walking in silence. In reality, though, they felt an immense weight was lifted from their shoulders and the pressure built within themselves due to their worries had now vanished.

"Authorized personnel only beyond this point." Uriel read a sign out loud and then shared a complicit look with Luna who replied with a nod before pushing the door open. It was the end of the conveyor belt, the part where the final product was supposed to come out, though the packages came out empty.

There were several production lines and they followed the one closest to the entrance, guessing correctly that it didn't matter which one they chose they would all lead to the same place. The next room was where all the product was sealed inside the packaging, but it wasn't working properly either.

Because of the magnitude of the building, Uriel proposed to continue their investigation from where they stood and follow the process backwards until they found whatever was wrong with it, but Luna refused and came up with another idea which was to check the whole process from the start.

As usual, they compromised and did exactly what Luna proposed since reasoning with the stubborn huntress was a headache.

As soon as they found their way towards the incubator, they were greeted by a warm room with red lights. It looked ominous, but Luna soon explained it was normal to use monochromatic red lights in incubator rooms as it helps the hatching process.

Everything worked properly and there were thousands of unhatched eggs in a metal mesh container that allowed the warm air to reach each of the eggs in the exact same measure. The whole mesh moved slowly and by the time it reached the end of the line, the eggs were already about to hatch.

The hatching room was a complete shock to Uriel as it was the first time he saw so many animals in the same place. Most people would have thought it was a shame that so many tiny lives would eventually meet their end just to become a cup of instant noodles, but Uriel understood better than most how important it was for survival.

More than pity, he felt curious as a question began forming on his mind.

"I didn't think there would be actual chicken in the synthetic food. Why do they call it synthetic anyway?"

"I think we'll know it soon enough." Luna said as she pointed at a broken alloy door in the distance beneath a sign that couldn't be read anymore, though it seemed to be a warning. It was the first real clue about the missing party's whereabouts and they rushed through the now empty doorframe expecting to find more clues.

In front of their eyes lied the next growth stage of the chickens, but instead of the cute yellow chicks they assumed would be there, what they saw was something unthinkable. Something that got them to question everything they believed in and even if they should have come in the first place.

"What is this?" Uriel asked wishing for an optimistic answer, to which Luna replied at the same time she shook her head.

"This is... cruelty."