Dungeon Raider System

After handing him a letter, the head of the Cryptid hunting agency dismissed Uriel, but not before reminding him the importance of the task she gave him.

He walked outside the ranger station dumbfounded, not really understanding how did she convince him to work for her even after stating that he wanted to go freelance, but that didn't change much as he was already neck deep and it was too late to back down.

In spite of its name, the south gate district didn't have an active gate on the wall. It was only ever used when ships sailed or docked, but after the arrival, traveling by sea was increasingly more difficult and zeppelins became the safest way to travel. Because of that, the south gate district which used to be a thriving commercial district, was now the poorest of the four districts on the city.

Uriel gazed at the buildings looking for any signs of something strange going on, but everything seemed normal. People on the streets looked happy and went about their day with a smile on their faces, which was odd considering the state of the buildings.

He thought odd that he couldn't find any guars or rangers, but after confirming there were no cryptids nearby he went to a starborgs to read the letter in peace, but it's content left him in shock.

'Dear Cryptid hunting association, I don't have the means to palce a bounty, but even if I did, I wouldn't know how should I go about it. What I'm about to tell you is something I find beyond disturbing and would appreciate if you looked into it: There's human flesh on the south district market.

A concerned citizen.'

Although brief, the letter contained the most disturbing message Uriel could have imagined. Had it said the whole district had been destroyed wouldn't have made him bat an eye, but to think there was human meat on the market right under everyone's eyes was deeply unsettling.

So much so, he thought of calling his friends to help him investigate this issue, but they were busy with their own tasks to refloat the Dungeon Raiders company.

"Alright, just a quick look at the market to confirm whether this is true or not and I'm off." Uriel muttered as he took a sip of coffee, only to spit it back onto the cup fearnig it might also be tainted. After all, if the rumors turned to be true, it wouldn't be so rare to find human remains at a coffee shop.

After reading the letter, Uruiel finally understood why the ahead of the Cryptid hunting agency coulnd't entrust this task to just anyone. Even if she sent hunters to investigate, she couldn't trust them since there was no way to confirm they were hyrbids without alerting the Fallen corp. that they already knew about their plan.

Besides, Uriel's studies on anthropology allowed him to differentiate human remains.

"No wonder she's the head of the agency, she's really well informed. I woudn't be surprised if she said she already suspected 'Magnum' and 'Sage' were the same person, but I wonder if she knows I'm 'Raider' as well." Uriel reflected on his own as he made his way to the market.

Walking seemed like the safest choice, because he could have the clay figurine at the ready in case he needed to make a run for it at any given time. But his precautions went to waste since the streets not only were safe, they seemed even safer than in the wealthier districts which didn't make sense.

Everyone seemed to be well off, there weren't beggars on the streets, there weren't any thugs or people from the slums. Granted, slum dwellers rarely made it to the wealthier parts of the city, but not because it was necessarily forbidden. It was because of the prohibitive prices of everything in those places, coffee, food, transportation, everything was more expensive.

Just out of curiosity, Uriel took a small detour from the huge avenue that lead to the market to see what did the slums looked like. At first everything was normal, but the closer he got to the wall he started noticing something strange, there were fewer and fewer people on the streets to the point where he found himself on an empty street.

"How come there's no one here in the middle of the day?" He raised a brow in suspicion as he quesitoned himself if the curfew was different for the different districts. Nevertheless, he didn't miss that it would make sense there's less people on the slums if that was where the human meat was being supplied from.

In fact, it made so much sense he was tempted to go back to the Cryptid hunting agency and report the rumors were true. But he couldn't get himself to do something like that, he still needed to gather solid proof if he hoped to unveil who was the culprit behind that.

Uriel walked back to the main avenue following the exact same path he did before to avoid any surprises and proceeded to head straight to the market as he didn't want to spend a single minute more than strictly necessary on the south district.

His heart raced even though he was safe, as though warning him that things could become hectic any minute, but once again it ended up being just paranoia and he reached the market safely.

Everything looked normal at first sight, there were several stalls along the street and most shops were open. People shouted their products to passerby and nothing stood out as weird or seemed suspicious looking. But of course, he had already figured out it would most likely be like that, if people did know what was going on it would be impossible to keep it from going live on the news.

Uriel then walked to the nearest food stall that offered meat, thinking it would be easy to spot any strange meat with but a glance, though as soon as he came close the shopkeeper greeted him.

"Hi! I haven't seen you around here before?" The shopkeeper said with a smile on his face.

"I'm... huh... new here." He said the first thing that came to mind.

"Are you looking for anything in particular?"

"I'm looking for something special." Uriel hesitated to say what he wanted, but the shopkeeper seemingly understood what he meant.

"Ahh... I see, I think I got what you're looking for." The shopkeeper said with a malicious grin.