Dungeon Raider System

Luna submerged herself into reading all the available documentation they could find, nodding from time to time as she skimmed through the unending folders placed in front of her. The amount of information was too great to be studied in depth, but Luna was looking for a specific folder, one that specified the biological nature of the creatures that were being kept in that facility.

Uriel attempted to help Luna find what she was looking for, but fell asleep after finishing the first one. It was more than understandable considering how he'd been getting so little sleep lately and that he didn't have Luna's knowledge that allowed her to easily rule out the folders that didn't help in their investigation.

"Interesting..." Luna muttered.

"I'm awake!" Uriel let out startled, almost falling from his seat.

"This is odd... according to this documents, they did nothing to manipulate the chickens. They were just regular animals when the factory just opened."

"But then..."

"How did they mutate? Now that genetic manipulation has been ruled out, the only thing left are environmental factors. This means that it's either the conditions in which they're kept or the food they've been eating..."

Uriel was beyond puzzled, but Luna refused to explain anything insisting that Medusa and Emma needed to be present too prompting Uriel to call them, though they were both busy and it would take them a while to arrive. In the meantime Luna continued reading in silence, but now that she apparently found what she had been looking for it was useless for Uriel to continue reading.

Because of this, he limited himself to observing Luna work in silence to avoid distracting her. While it wasn't unusual for Luna to focus on her studies to the point of losing herself, doing so with someone else present was a rare occurrence.

She always studied inside her room and completely by herself and although she had always nagged Uriel to join her in her research, Uriel never saw the allure in biology or studying cryptids and always rejected her offers.

Still, seeing how driven she was made Uriel realize something he had missed. Luna's field of study was much more vague than archaeology, but it was just as vast if not more. This means that in order for her to become as proficient in her field of study as she was, she must have put at least the same amount of work than Uriel did on his, if not even more which made Uriel admire her even more.

Her stony face had always been a mystery to unravel that made Luna seem as though she lived in her own world, but the soft movements she made while turning the pages and the way she regularly adjusted a strand of hair that would sometimes tickle her cheek returned her to reality.

She didn't live in a bubble of her own making, it was just the way she was wired and in spite of her social awkwardness she had always attempted to participate.

Medusa's rushed steps came in the distance, somewhat breaking whatever spell had kept Uriel enthralled for the past half hour.

"What is it?" Medusa asked, facing towards a random direction as usual since she couldn't see. Thankfully, Emma walked in a few seconds after her and she was kind enough to point her in the right direction.

"We're in a... uhm... tough spot." Luna started speaking. "The reason why we came here is to secure a food source, but I'm afraid things aren't as easy as I initially thought."

"What do you mean? Please don't tell me eating cheeky chicken is harmful." Medusa's face paled.

"Not necessarily, at least not for hunters..." Luna fell on a pensive daze, but since they've been waiting on her to reach a solution to their problems they knew better than to interrupt her. Her expressionless face failed to convey the many thoughts taking place in her mind at a speed only someone at the genius level was capable of following and rushing her would only mean a delay.

"We need to make a decision, but an informed one so I'll proceed with explaining the situation and you'll be the ones to make the decision. I would do it, but... there's morality questions and I'm aware that I'm... uhm... not great with those."

Uriel couldn't help but feel relieved by Luna's admission. He knew he wasn't one to judge her and would have been fine with whatever she decided, but he feared that Luna might go to some dark places if left unchecked. At least now he knew that just like him, she was aware of her shortcomings.

"When exposed to enough flux energy a human mutates and becomes what we call hunter. It seems that, by feeding on humans with a high content of flux energy, these chickens have awakened some sort of trait which makes them closer to hunters than they are to cryptids. This means that by eating these chickens, the same thing has been happening to humans.

In other words, although this seemed to have happened on accident, the government continued providing this 'synthetic' food to people in order to strengthen the population's resistance to flux energy. This explains why the citizens can withstand a certain amount of flux pressure in spite of not having a trait."

"Hang on, you're saying that they're hunter chickens?"

"Not really, they might have what we call a physical trait, but they're incapable of harnessing flux energy. Their bodies were mutated by the presence of flux energy, but that's the extent of their evolution."

"So, consuming them is safe for people..." Medusa let out a relieved sigh, but Luna continued.

"Unfortunately, the mutilation process these creatures endure is absolutely required to keep them as livestock because it would be impossible to keep them contained without it. In other words, if we want to keep this factory open, that part of the process can not be avoided."

"The survival of millions is at stake here, but it can only be achieved by sacrificing innocent animals and condemning them to a world of pain." Medusa said with a grim expression.

While she loved cheeky chicken more than any kind of food and she wasn't necessarily against eating animals, that didn't mean she wasn't troubled by doing so if it meant putting so many animals through that kind of suffering.

"What would you do?" Asked Uriel sensing that Luna wasn't telling them everything.

"If it was for me..." Luna lingered for a couple seconds. "I would put these creatures out of their misery, destroy this building and the documentation to prevent anyone from attempting anything similar in the future."

"What!?" Uriel blurted out taken aback by Luna's position on the matter.

"In my field we have to follow the code of bioethics: Beneficence, nonmalevolence, truth telling, autonomy and... justice. This place breaks pretty much any of those codes, but... if we destroy it, many people will die as a result. That's why I can't provide an answer."

"Can you elaborate?" Emma asked after jotting down Luna's moral code on her notepad.

"Beneficence means that we must have the possible benefits in mind, nonmalevolence means we must act without malicious intent which might excuse some lines of... uhm... research, truth telling is self explanatory, autonomy means that each creature holds a value in their own and we must only intervene when beneficence applies.

This means we shouldn't go out of our way to cause harm just for the sake of it, there must be a benefit to it. Justice... let's just say that, in my eyes animals aren't different from humans, the same applies to cryptids. I'm only half human after all." Luna explained and then fell silent.

"Then it's settled, not even all the Cheeky chicken in the world is worth this kind murder factory."

"Murder factory, huh..." Uriel mumbled as the gears inside his mind began spinning. "Isn't this exactly what Sam did, only with people instead of animals? It's almost as if he was trying to replicate this exact factory under the guise of a hospital."

"Uhm... you might be on to something..."

"Luna, we're not going to make a human farm!" Medusa blurted out.

"That's not what I meant. Humans are too troublesome anyway. Now we know that flux interacts not only with humans, but with animals too. I think it's safe to assume that the same happens for plant life, this would explain why there were exotic plants outside the dungeon entrance.

Dungeons are convergence points for flux energy and the solution to all of our problems might lie in those plants and the best part is that since they're not sentient."

Although the group failed to reclaim the food factory, in the end they did find what they hoped could be a solution to the food scarcity. It wasn't the outcome Uriel expected, but in a sense it was much better since it came accompanied by getting to understand Luna a bit better. She might appear cruel at times, but his fears that she might cross the boundaries of morality like Sam did were baseless.